The Stones of Angkor

CHAPTER 26 WILL

Josh was alive. That shouldn’t have been possible, but there it was. In living person. Flesh and blood. He was still Josh. Eighteen years old, with longer, shaggier hair than Will remembered, but still the same kid.

Will remembered watching him drop into the water, the urge to jump in after him overridden by the sight of the collaborator boat bearing down on them. At that moment, he had been forced to make a decision — save himself, Blaine, Maddie, and Bobby, not to mention the supplies they had come for, or risk everything for one kid.

He liked Josh. He did. But Josh was one life, while there were many more, including Lara, on the island. He wished he could say it was a difficult decision, but it wasn’t.

Just when you think everything was starting to make sense, the world reminds you that you don’t know Jack shit.

He stood next to Josh’s tent and listened to the conversation inside. He moved slightly backward and out of view when Josh led Gaby out. When Josh told Gaby there were no reasons for the people to leave the camp, Will couldn’t disagree. The kid was right. These people didn’t want to leave. And why should they? They had it good here. Too good.

Will remembered what Kate had once said to him: “But then again, I was always good at selling dreams to desperate people.”

And that was exactly what this was. A sell job. Where Kate began, Josh continued. Giving people a place to call their own, safety, and the ability to live and love and die of old age was a damn fine offer, especially given the alternative. No wonder most of the people around him now — the laughing kids, the smiling pregnant women, the gruff men gathered around campfires cooking fresh meat — thought this was better than running and hiding and constantly fearing the night.

Because, in so many ways, it was.

Josh and Gaby went back into the tent, where they continued their conversation. He could tell by her questions that Gaby was trying to squeeze Josh for information, to keep him talking.

Smart girl.

He glanced at his watch: 2:45 p.m.

Plenty of time, but it wouldn’t last. He would have to do something sooner rather than later. Either rescue Gaby and Nate, or at least one of them. Eventually someone would notice the “Givens” on his chest. He couldn’t remove it, either, because everyone here had a label — with the exception of Josh. Will guessed that was due to Josh’s rank, his ability to come and go as he pleased.

Maybe that was it. Josh. Maybe that was his way out with not just Gaby, but Nate, too.

Doable.

Will walked around the tent and slipped inside the open flaps.

Josh looked up, clearly annoyed at the sight of him. “What is it?” Then Josh saw the gun in Will’s hand. “What—?”

Gaby turned, saw Will, and recognized him instantly even behind the gas mask. “Thank God you’re alive. They took Nate.”

“I know,” Will said.

“Gaby?” Josh said. “You know him?”

Will pulled the gas mask up, perching it on his forehead.

“Will,” Josh said, frowning slightly.

“How you doing, kid?” Will said.

“I’m…fine.”

“I can see that. Gaby,” Will said, and nodded at Josh’s handgun.

Gaby quickly pulled it — a 9mm Glock — free and slipped it into her own empty holster.

Josh’s eyes snapped to her. “What are you doing, Gaby?”

“You know what I’m doing, Josh.” She opened the pouches along his gun belt and stuffed his spare magazines into hers. “How did you think this was going to end?”

Josh’s face seemed to crater. Will almost felt sorry for the kid. “You don’t believe me,” Josh said. “After everything I’ve told you, you still don’t believe me.”

“I believe you think you’re doing all this for me. But it’s bullshit, Josh.”

“It’s the truth.”

“No, it’s not. The truth is, you’re not the Josh I remembered.” She looked over at Will. Her face was stone, but he could see through it to the emotions roiling around inside her at the moment. “What about Nate?”

“They took him to the blue tent.” He looked over at Josh. “Kid.”

Josh looked up, his face shell-shocked.

Gaby was moving around the tent, looking for supplies. She picked up a backpack from the ground — Josh’s — and stuffed in anything she could find. Busy work. She didn’t want to look at Josh. Didn’t want to see the heartbreak on his face.

“How many collaborators are in the camp?” Will asked Josh.

“Too many for you to kill them all,” Josh said.

Will grinned back at him. “Are you sure about that?”

“Assuming you could. Then what?” he said, his voice challenging. “Look around you, Will. No one here wants to leave. The gates are open. They’re not leaving because they don’t want to. Look outside if you don’t believe me.”

“I’ve seen enough. I’ve also seen the pregnant women in the blue tent. You’re breeding blood farms, Josh.”

“No. You’re looking at this all wrong.”

“You’re turning the human race into chattel. Open your eyes.”

“No!” he shouted.

Will lifted a finger to his lips. “Don’t do that again.”

“Or what? You’re going to shoot me?” Josh looked as if he might laugh. “They saved me from the lake, Will. Not you.”

“I couldn’t come back for you. Not with the others and the supplies at risk.”

“You could have, but you didn’t. You made a choice. Just like I did.”

“Is that what you tell yourself?”

Gaby walked back over to them, avoiding Josh’s searching eyes. “I’m not leaving without Nate.”

Will nodded. “Yeah, I figured.”

“So what’s the plan?”

Josh was staring at Gaby. “You lied about him,” he said accusingly. “He’s not just some guy.”

Will thought Gaby would keep ignoring him, that she’d pretend Josh had never spoken. But she surprised him by turning around and looking Josh in the eyes. “I didn’t lie to you. I did just meet him this morning. He didn’t have to come here, but he did. I don’t care what you think this is, Josh, but he’s my friend, and I don’t leave my friends behind.”

“What about me, Gaby?” That might have been a question, but Will thought it sounded more like another accusation.

“What about you, Josh?”

“You’re going to leave me again? After three months? After everything I’ve done—”

“For me?” Gaby finished. “I never wanted this. I don’t want this. Stop fooling yourself into thinking this is all for me.”

“But it is,” Josh said, almost pleading now. “Why can’t you see that? Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve accomplished, it’s all for you. This is how I’m going to keep you safe, Gaby. This.”

“Look at me, Josh.” Gaby stepped toward him, and though they were the same height, somehow she seemed to tower over him anyway. “I don’t need your protection. I never did, and I never will. So you can stop lying to yourself about why you’ve done the things you’ve done. It’s bullshit, Josh.”

Josh’s entire body seemed to flinch under her words, and he looked away.

Will holstered his gun. “All right, kids. Enough with the Days of our Lives. We’re going to get Nate. Everyone. Together.”

“Then what?” Gaby said.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

Will walked through the camp toward the big blue tent for the second time. This time Gaby was beside him while Josh led the way up front. The kid walked awkwardly, as if he had to force his unwilling legs to move. He hadn’t tried to run yet, which surprised Will. He wondered if Josh was afraid of getting shot trying to escape, or if he still thought he could salvage this somehow.

Gaby. He’s still clinging to hope that he can convince her. That’s why he hasn’t run.

Josh’s gun holster was empty, but no one seemed to notice. The few men in hazmat suits they saw along the way either nodded to Josh, who wasn’t wearing his gas mask, or didn’t acknowledge him in any way. They did the same to Will and Gaby. Somehow, all of this made sense to these people.

They’ve had it too good for too long. They don’t know how to do it any other way.

Will felt a little bad for Josh. He believed the kid when he said everything he did was to protect Gaby. He had seen them together in the days before Josh “died.” Everything the kid did, he did it with the singular goal of keeping Gaby safe. The problem for Josh was that the Gaby he remembered was an eighteen-year-old high school senior. That Gaby was long gone. The fact that this Gaby survived the Mercy Hospital attack, while most of Mike’s people died, was proof of that.

“The towns,” Will said. “Where are they, Josh?”

“They’re everywhere,” Josh said.

“You didn’t build them from scratch?”

“There was no need, not with so many small towns just lying around.”

“So you’re just repurposing them.”

“Yeah.”

“Your idea, or Kate’s?”

“Both,” Josh said. There was none of the pride Will had heard earlier when Josh was trying to convince Gaby. “It seemed easier, and most people don’t care. Swap out the carpets, fix the windows and sometimes the doors, and it’s almost like new again.”

“Except for the blood, and the stench of death.”

Josh didn’t reply.

“You’re moving the next group tomorrow,” Will said. “What time?”

“I haven’t decided.”

The kid really is in charge.

Will looked around him at the camp, at the woods beyond. “Are they around?”

“Who?” Josh said.

“You know who.”

“A few.”

“How many is a few?” Gaby asked.

“A few hundred. Maybe a few thousand. It’s not like I’ve sat down to count.”

“In the forest,” Will said.

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t see any while I was running through earlier.”

“Neither did I,” Gaby said.

“You wouldn’t. They—” He stopped.

“What?” Will said. “They what, Josh?”

“They’re very good about hiding from the sun,” Josh said. “But you already know that.”

“What now?” Gaby said, when they were inside the blue tent.

“This is where it gets dicey,” Will said. “If anything happens, grab Nate and run. Even if you can’t get to him, you need to run, Gaby.”

“Not without Nate.”

“Gaby…”

“Not without Nate,” she said stubbornly.

He sighed. “All right. Not without Nate.”

Will wondered if Josh had heard their little back-and-forth. Maybe not. The tent was loud with conversation and noise, the sounds of people eating, drinking, and even snoring. It was entirely possible Josh hadn’t heard, but it was also very possible he had heard every single word, including Gaby’s very clear pronouncement she wasn’t going anywhere without Nate.

Ah, teenage love in the apocalypse. So unpredictable.

“Where would they take Nate, Josh?” Will asked.

“He’s being watched by armed guards, so it’ll be one of the private tents,” Josh said.

“Lead the way.”

Josh led them across the large room toward the dozen or so smaller tents lined in a row near the back. One of the tents belonged to Zoe, the doctor, and Will was relieved to see it wasn’t her tent that Josh was making a beeline for. The one they were approaching had an armed man in a hazmat suit standing outside of it. The label on his left breast read “Henry.”

The man saw them coming and nodded at Josh.

“How is he?” Josh asked.

Henry shrugged. “He’s alive. Doctor’s in there with him now.”

Josh slipped inside the tent, and Will and Gaby followed. Will glimpsed Henry looking after Gaby, ignoring him completely. It was a good thing Gaby was between the two of them. Will was still waiting for his Givens cover to get blown, but apparently the guy hadn’t been all that remarkable or made much of an impression on anyone, judging by how little reaction the name Givens got from those he had met so far.

There was a second man in a hazmat suit standing near the back of the tent, his gas mask clipped to his hip. His label read “Williams.” He looked bored and was staring down at an old copy of Playboy.

Nate was shirtless and lying on a cot in front of a woman in a white doctor’s coat. Fresh gauze was wrapped almost entirely over the left side of his body, all the way down to his elbow, as if someone were getting ready to turn him into a mummy. He looked cleaned up, but that wasn’t hard to do; the last time Will had seen him, Nate had been covered in blood and dirt.

Nate opened his eyes when he heard them coming in. He might not have recognized Will with the gas mask on, but he didn’t have that problem with Gaby.

The doctor was putting her supplies into a small bag as she stood up. Will knew who she was before she even turned around.

“How is he?” Josh asked.

“He’ll live,” Zoe said. Then she looked over at Will, standing behind Josh, and smiled a bit. “Hey.”

Will nodded back at her. “Doc.”

“You got my list?” Zoe asked Josh.

“What list?” Josh said.

She looked irritated. “I gave Givens the list of everyone going on the transport tomorrow. I also told him about the problem with the trucks getting too hot during the trip.”

Josh glanced briefly at Will, then back to Zoe and nodded. “Oh, that. He told me.”

“So?” Zoe said.

“So what?”

“The transport arrangements. You’ll change it for tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I’ll do that.”

“Good.” She looked back over at Will. “Seriously, Givens, you must really like that gas mask. I haven’t seen you without it all day.”

“Yeah,” Will said.

Dammit, Will thought when he saw Williams looking up from the Playboy at the mention of Givens’s name. The man’s eyes zeroed in on Will’s face.

“Givens?” Williams said. “Bullshit. You’re not—”

Will drew his Glock and shot Williams in the chest. A thin bullet hole appeared in the suit as Williams collapsed, all the blood captured inside the fabric as if it were a vacuum.

Gaby quickly scrambled forward and snatched up Williams’s rifle, while Will spun around just as Henry, the other hazmat-suited guard, pushed his way into the tent.

“What the hell’s going on?” Henry said.

Will shot him in the head.

Zoe stumbled backward, shocked, eyes darting from Josh to Will to Henry’s body on the grass floor. She bumped into Gaby, who pulled out Williams’s handgun — a 9mm Beretta — and handed it to Nate.

Nate sat up on the small cot with a grunt and reached for a shirt that looked about a size too big hanging from a hook nearby. He pulled it on with his one good hand, until Gaby hurried over and helped him into the sleeves. Nate grimaced with pain the whole time, but tried not to show it. It was a losing battle, though, and he looked worse than some of the walking wounded Will had seen from his time in Afghanistan.

Josh whirled on Will, his face red with anger. “Why did you do that? You shouldn’t have done that!”

There was already a commotion outside the tent. He heard heavy footsteps, and men’s voices shouting for people to get out of their way.

Will pulled off the gas mask and looked past Josh’s and Zoe’s horrified faces at Nate, as Gaby struggled to do the bottom two buttons on his shirt. “Can you walk?”

Nate nodded grimly. “I can walk.”

Will looked back at Josh and Zoe. “The two of you are coming with us.”

“What?” Zoe said. “Just go!”

“Sorry, doc, but we need hostages.” He focused on Josh. “And I get the feeling Kate made it very clear to everyone that you’re her golden boy. Am I right?”

Josh said nothing.

“Gaby, Nate,” Will said.

He didn’t have to tell them the rest. Nate, still leaning against Gaby for support, positioned himself behind Zoe, while Gaby pulled Josh in front of her, standing the two hostages between them and the tent entrance, as the sound of running feet got louder as they drew nearer.

Will slipped out his cross-knife and moved toward the back of the tent. He shoved the knife into the fabric and sliced it across, then down, before pulling the flap aside to reveal the blue color of the bigger tent directly behind it.

“What’s going on in there?” a voice shouted from the front of the tent. “Josh? Doctor Zoe? You both still in there?”

“Answer him,” Gaby said. She was calm, but there was an edge to her voice.

“Doctor Zoe and I are being held hostage!” Josh shouted back.

“By who?” the voice asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” Gaby said.

“Doesn’t matter!” Josh shouted.

“Williams? Henry?” the voice asked.

“Dead!”

While they were exchanging questions and answers, Will had slashed his way across the back of the tent, then continued through the blue fabric behind it. He sliced from top to bottom, then side to side, before peeling it back to reveal open air and the frightened faces of civilians staring back at him. They immediately began running away, except for a couple of boys eating apples who stopped to gawk, until older people dragged them away, too.

“Stay back or we’ll kill them!” Gaby shouted behind him.

He went through the makeshift “door” first. “Gaby, Nate…”

Josh and Zoe followed him out, with Gaby and Nate closely behind them. Nate was essentially working with one good arm, his left hanging uselessly at his side.

“You going to die on me, Nate?” Will asked.

Nate gave him a forced grin, then wiped at a thick bead of sweat along his temple. “I’m good. They gave me some great pills back there, and the doc was nice enough to sew me back up.”

Will nodded. He didn’t believe a single word of it, but if he could walk… “Gaby, take Josh up front. Nate stays in the middle. Hold on to my rifle and lead me and the good doctor.”

Gaby grabbed Josh by the arm and led him forward. Will could see the hurt expression on the kid’s face as he silently obeyed. Gaby seemed to be moving on automatic pilot, like some kind of unfeeling automaton. He knew better, of course. She had simply shifted into what he called War Mode. He and Danny did it all the time during combat. It was easier to compartmentalize the superfluous and concentrate on the matter at hand — survival. Gaby was far from ruthless and emotionless at the moment, but she was putting on a good front.

That’s my soldier.

Will was backpedaling with Zoe in front of him, which made walking difficult. He made sure to keep a firm grasp on her arm so she didn’t stumble, and when she did, he was there to keep her upright — at least, for the most part.

Will didn’t think the “don’t come in or we’ll kill them” threat was going to last very long, and it didn’t. They hadn’t gone more than twenty meters through the camp before he saw the first hazmat suit poking his head out from the slashed tent flaps in front of him.

Zoe gasped at the sight of the man emerging out of the tent in pursuit, perhaps expecting everything to suddenly devolve into gunfire with her caught in the middle. He didn’t blame her. She was probably close to being right.

“Relax,” Will said.

“Relax?” she said, almost shouting the word out. “Go to hell, Givens!”

Yeah, Givens, to go hell.

When more hazmat suits started emerging out of the tent flaps, Will fired a shot into the ground in front of the first man. He quickly retreated, tangling up with the man trying to come through behind him. It was almost comical. They disappeared back into the tent, but he didn’t think that was going to last for very long, either.

“Where are we going?” Gaby shouted from behind him.

He couldn’t see Gaby or the direction she was heading. He only knew when to go straight, to turn left or right when Nate tugged on his M4A1, as if he were a seeing eye dog leading his blind master. It was a crude form of stacking, but there were no other ways for him to keep an eye behind them while still moving the entire time.

“One of the vehicles outside the fence,” Will said.

“Where are the keys?” Gaby asked. The question wasn’t directed at him.

“In the cars,” Josh said.

“You leave the keys in the cars?”

“No one’s going to steal them. I told you, they want to stay here. Why can’t you understand that?”

“Less chatter, more walking,” Will said.

They began moving faster through the camp, and Will struggled to keep Zoe upright in front of him. He wasn’t sure if she was moving slowly on purpose, or if she was just terrified and her legs were locking up under her.

People were scrambling out of their path, and by now the hazmat suits had emerged out of the blue tent, with more appearing along their flanks. He didn’t have a clue what they were doing; he only knew that they weren’t shooting, which confirmed his belief that Kate had made it perfectly clear Josh was her avatar in the daylight.

An eighteen-year-old kid, Kate? You could have done better.

He fired a shot into the air and the hazmat suits darted for cover.

Temporarily, anyway.

Soon they were back out and following them again.

Will pulled Zoe tighter against him, heard her grunt a bit.

“Gaby, how we doing?” Will shouted.

“Almost there!” she shouted back.

More men in hazmat suits were converging on them now. He counted a total of ten, then eleven — and those were just the ones he could see trailing them and moving in on his left and right. He glimpsed a man taking careful aim with a bolt-action rifle.

Will shifted Zoe over so she was directly between him and the would-be shooter. “Sorry, doc.”

“What?” she said, even more alarmed than she already was.

The man with the rifle pulled his eye away from the scope and lowered his weapon slightly, though not completely.

“Gaby, give me a sitrep!” Will shouted.

“Gate!” she shouted back.

Nate tugged on the M4A1 and Will moved right and found himself backpedaling through one of the unlocked gates. He risked a quick glance over his shoulder at a row of vehicles — the five-ton transports, Jeeps, and too many trucks to count. The ground under the vehicles was wet, and mud clung to the undercarriages, especially those of the five-tons.

He felt Nate let go of the rifle. Will waited at the gate, his gun pressed into the side of Zoe’s neck where it had been for the last few minutes during their trek through the camp. The hazmat suits had gathered in front of them now, spreading out along the other side of the fence. They weren’t engaging in anything resembling tactical maneuvers that he could see, but they looked fidgety and anxious, which was never a good sign with people armed with assault rifles.

Now or never…

“Will!” Gaby shouted behind him. “You coming or what?”

Will slipped his head behind Zoe’s, then looked back at the others. Nate was behind the wheel of a white Ford F-150 and Gaby was pushing Josh into the backseats.

“Come on, doc,” Will said, dragging her toward the open front passenger side door.

The men in hazmat suits looked conflicted, unsure whether to follow, shoot, or let them go. He could see them exchanging looks, talking to each other. A lot of head shaking, a couple of the men trying to take control, but most of them looking unsure.

Thank God for amateurs.

“Jesus, you’re trying to get me killed,” Zoe said, gasping against him.

“Let’s hope that doesn’t happen,” he said.

Will finally reached the truck. He glanced in at Nate, settling in behind the steering wheel. “You good?”

“Good enough,” Nate said.

“In you go, doc.”

Will shoved her into the open back door with Gaby and Josh, slammed the door closed, then dived into the front seat.

Almost instantly, he heard rifle fire and the front windshield spiderwebbed as Nate slammed his foot down on the gas. The F-150 skidded, fighting for purchase against the muddy ground.

It finally got enough traction to back up, Nate spinning the wheel as if he were some Hollywood stunt driver. Will had absolutely no idea how the kid managed it with just one good arm.

Then they were moving forward, slashing along the hurricane fencing to their left, men in hazmat suits running and firing after them. He heard the ping ping ping! of bullets going into the sides of the vehicle. Then Nate slammed down on the brake and spun the steering wheel again, and they were suddenly back on the dirt road with trees everywhere.

Will turned around and looked into the backseat, at a horrified Zoe sitting behind him in the middle. Josh sat against the window to Zoe’s left, while Gaby caught her breath to the doctor’s right. Gaby had her Glock in her lap, aimed at Zoe and Josh.

“We good?” Will asked.

Gaby nodded. “No bullet holes.”

Will looked over at Josh, but the kid’s face was turned against the window. “Josh—”

Before Will could finish, Josh jerked on the door handle, flinging open the door and disappearing outside in a rush of wind. Gaby screamed his name and Nate slammed on the brakes. The F-150 skidded to a reckless, sliding stop.

“Holy shit,” Nate said. “Did he just jump out of a moving car?”

Will threw his door open and climbed out. Josh was picking himself up from the road thirty meters back. He looked to be in one piece, but was cradling his left arm. Josh stared back at him, almost daring Will to come get him.

Kid’s got balls.

“Should we go back?” Nate asked, leaning over the front seats.

Will shook his head and climbed back into the truck. “Let’s go.”

Nate put the truck back in gear and stepped on the gas. As they shot up the road, Will looked at his side mirror and saw two trucks, men in hazmat suits mounted on the backs, appear behind Josh. They slowed down when they saw him, and he calmly, almost leisurely, walked over to one of the vehicles.

Then Nate made a turn and Will couldn’t see them anymore. Will thought about telling the kid to slow down, but he seemed to be handling both the truck and his own pain well enough.

He looked back at Gaby instead, saw the unasked question in her eyes. “He’s alive,” Will said. “Hurt, but alive.”

“Are they chasing us?” she asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Why aren’t they?” Nate said.

“Maybe he doesn’t think there’s a point.”

“Who? The kid?”

“Yeah,” Will said. “The kid.”

“Nate shouldn’t be driving,” Gaby said.

“I’m fine,” Nate said.

“The hell you are. You could barely walk an hour ago.”

“That was an hour ago. The doc gave me some really good pills back there. Right, doc?”

Zoe didn’t answer. She stared forward in silence, looking dazed.

“Anyway, I’ll let you know when I can’t drive anymore,” Nate continued. “But I’m good for now.”

Will turned his attention to Zoe. “You okay, doc? Any bullet holes?”

She seemed to remember where she was and glared back at him, just before lunging forward and slapping him across the face with surprising speed. Gaby grabbed her and pulled her back, but Zoe never took her eyes away from him. If she could, he imagined she would drill lasers through his eyeballs.

“Go to hell, Givens,” Zoe said.

“My name’s not Givens,” Will said.

“You can still go to hell, whatever your name is.”

Will sat back in his seat, trying to shake off the stinging in his cheek. She was a hell of a lot stronger than she looked.

“That was fun,” Nate said, grinningly crookedly at him. “Let’s not do it again anytime soon, huh?”

CHAPTER 27 GABY

About ten minutes after they exited Sandwhite Wildlife State Park, Will pulled off the hazmat suit and got behind the wheel of the Ford F-150. In the backseat, Zoe cleaned up Nate’s open shoulder wound — which had begun bleeding again — and applied a fresh bandage, tossing the blood-soaked one out the window.

Gaby had been reluctant to let Zoe even touch Nate, but she finally relented when the older woman gave her a firm look and said, “I know you don’t trust me, but I’m a doctor, and I’m not going to let your friend bleed to death if I can help it.”

Zoe kept her promise, cleaning Nate’s wound, then dressing it back up with the supplies from Will’s pack. When she was done, they propped Nate up between them so he could lean his head against Gaby’s shoulder. She slipped an arm around his waist just to make sure he didn’t fall down.

When they finally reached the town of Harvest, Gaby half expected to see Harris, Kellerson’s sniper, lying in wait for them again. She listened for gunshots that never came.

Will pulled off the main highway and drove west along the small streets for about thirty minutes, heading deeper and deeper into the main center of town where they could become lost among the buildings. He finally stopped, then guided the truck toward a two-door auto body garage called Fredo’s. They drove past a sign featuring a cartoon character holding a wrench, and the promise of “Mechanic on Duty.” Fredo’s was squeezed in between a combination Phillips 66 gas station and Burger King, and an empty building with a “For Rent” sign in the window.

Will parked the F-150 and climbed out with his rifle. He entered the office next to the garage, then came out of a side door and went around the back. Gaby waited with Zoe, still holding the Glock she had taken from Josh, just in case.

“He called you Gaby?” Zoe said.

“Yeah, that’s my name.”

“I figured that.”

“So why’d you ask?”

“I’m just trying to be friendly.”

“You can stop now.”

The older woman sighed. “When are you going to let me go?”

“You’ll have to talk to Will about that. I don’t even know why he brought you along. If it was up to me, I’d just shoot you.”

Zoe went quiet.

Will returned, pulled up one of the garage doors and went inside.

“Would you really do that?” Zoe asked after a while.

“Do what?” She knew what Zoe was referring to, but the mischievous side of Gaby felt like hearing the other woman say it anyway.

“Would you really shoot me in cold blood?”

“Who says it would be in cold blood?”

“I don’t have a weapon. I’m harmless.”

“I don’t see that.”

“No, I don’t have a weapon,” she insisted.

“Not that. The second part.”

“That I’m harmless?”

“Yeah.”

“You may be younger than me, but you’re clearly more adept with those weapons than I am. Besides, I don’t think I could take you in a fight.”

Gaby almost laughed. “I wish you’d try. I’d crush your throat. That is, if I don’t break your nose and shove the loose bones into your brain first.”

She heard Zoe swallow audibly on the other side of Nate. Gaby smiled to herself.

“What you were doing back there,” Gaby said, “with the pregnant girls. That makes you dangerous.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re working for them. The ghouls. The bloodsuckers. Whatever you want to call them. That makes you dangerous. Add in your medical training, and that really makes you dangerous. I would shoot you just to keep you out of their hands, so you can’t do any more harm.”

Zoe didn’t answer.

Will climbed back into the truck. He noticed the silence, and there must have been something about Zoe’s face that gave away their conversation.

“What’s going on, ladies?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Zoe said.

“Just girl talk,” Gaby said.

“Uh huh,” Will said, not believing a single word of it.

He reversed the truck, then turned a full 180 degrees in the driveway before backing up into one of the two empty garage ports.

Gaby climbed out of the truck and walked outside to pull security with the AR-15 she had snatched up during their escape. The weapon felt wrong in her hands, and she longed to have her old M4 back. The barrel on the AR-15 was too long, and she was even slightly annoyed by the ugly tan color. But at least whoever owned it before her had converted it to full-auto, so there was that.

Sunlight was fading in the horizon, and she could barely make out the gray stones of the highway from this distance. Will had chosen a good spot to lay low for the night.

Zoe climbed out, and when Gaby looked back, she saw the other woman doing everything possible to avoid her gaze.

“We’ll stay here for the night,” Will said.

“Then what?” Zoe asked, arms wrapped tightly around her chest. “What happens to me?”

“I need you to keep an eye on Nate, make sure he survives the night.”

“And then?”

“We’ll revisit that question tomorrow.”

She sighed, frustrated. “Do you have any painkillers? He’s going to need them.”

Will pulled out his pack, took out a bottle, and handed it to her.

“Generic Vicodin,” Zoe said, reading the label. “It’ll do.”

“Gaby,” Will said.

She walked into the garage and they pulled one steel door down, then the other. There were no ways to lock the doors except for a latch that could be easily flicked open. The room was suddenly bathed in darkness, until Gaby heard a soft crackling sound and Will’s face lit up, illuminated by a soft green glow stick. He put it on the dashboard and climbed back in behind the steering wheel.

She squeezed into the back with Nate, lifting his head and resting it in her lap. She stroked his hair, matted with sweat, and looked down at his calm, almost contented face. His lips even looked as if they were curling up into a smile, as though he knew she was doting on him.

Zoe climbed into the front passenger seat, her face illuminated by the glow stick. Will pulled out some strips of beef jerky from his pack and passed them around. Zoe took the offering gratefully, pulling open the wrapper and chewing ravenously.

“Tell me about the towns,” Will said.

Zoe didn’t answer right away. The older woman was sitting directly in front of her, so Gaby couldn’t see her face. She did see the seat moving uncomfortably from time to time, depending on what Will was asking.

“What about them?” Zoe finally said.

“How many are there around the state?”

“I only know of three.”

“You’ve been to all of them?”

“Just two.”

“Including the one they’re scheduled to transport to tomorrow?”

“Not that one, no.”

“How big are these towns?”

“Big.”

“Give me dimensions.”

She sighed. “I don’t know. I didn’t exactly get out and measure them.”

“Ballpark.”

“They’re good-sized towns, I guess. More than one street.”

“How many people were there?”

“There were 500 in one town, and about a thousand in the other.”

“How many were supposed to go to this third town?”

“From my camp alone, around 700.”

“How many camps will be relocating their people over to this third town?”

“Josh told me two other camps from around the area.”

“Jesus, how many camps are there?” Gaby asked.

“There are five that I know of,” Zoe said.

“As big as the one we just left?” Will asked.

“No. This last one was the biggest by far. The others are about half the size, some smaller.”

“And they all have pregnant women in them?”

“Yes. They…encourage it.”

“I bet the guys don’t mind,” Gaby smirked.

“No, I guess not,” Zoe said.

“So you go around the camps, making sure everyone’s getting laid?” Will asked.

Gaby smiled at the question.

“I’m a doctor,” Zoe said defensively. “Someone has to look out for them.”

“How many doctors do they have working the camps?”

“I haven’t been to all of them, like I said. But of the five that I’ve visited, there are about twenty of us spread around. Actual doctors and nurses. Most of the ones you saw in scrubs back at the camp were volunteers.”

“Twenty doctors and nurses for five camps. That’s a lot of work.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“And you don’t see anything wrong with it?”

Zoe didn’t answer right away.

“Doc?” Will pressed.

“What do you want me to say?” She sounded angry, which surprised Gaby. There was real emotion there, and her voice rose slightly. “I did the best I could, but there’s only so much you can do. And I was tired of the running, the hiding…watching people dying that I couldn’t save.”

The seat in front of Gaby creaked as Zoe leaned back against it heavily.

“I thought I was dead at first,” Zoe continued. “When it all began, there were twenty-nine of us. We were like you, running and hiding, barely surviving. Then one night they caught us, and I went to sleep. I don’t know what happened. It was some kind of induced coma, I know that now.”

Phase Two. The blood farms…

“Were you alert?” Will asked. “During the coma?”

“Sometimes.” She paused. “It’s hard to tell. Sometimes I remember images. Flickers of memory, but they’re hazy, and it’s never for very long. A creature bending over me, over one of my arms…my legs…” She shook her head. “It’s all a blur. I can’t make out details, just the feeling of helplessness. Unable to move, unable to make a sound, unable to… It’s better to pretend it’s all just a bad dream.”

She stopped talking for a moment. Will didn’t push it, and Gaby wasn’t sure if she really wanted to know more, either. The idea of a blood farm was grotesque enough, but getting details about what happened inside one of them, from someone who was a victim of it, felt almost perverted.

“Then one day I woke up,” Zoe said. “It’s months later, and suddenly I have this dream. This creature, with glowing blue eyes, giving me a choice. But it wasn’t much of a choice. Go back to sleep, or wake up and help people. It wasn’t much of a choice, like I said.”

Zoe pulled back the long sleeves of her white doctor’s coat that she still had on and showed Will her arm. Gaby leaned over a bit and saw fading teeth marks against pale skin. She had no doubt there were similar markings along Zoe’s right arm too, and maybe other places as well. Will had told her about what happened at those blood farms, and Blaine and Maddie had confirmed it. The ghouls fed on you, night after night after night…

She shivered slightly in her seat.

“I guess I’m weak,” Zoe said. “I rationalized it, of course. History will look at me and frown. But what’s that saying? History is written by the winners. Tell me, Will, do you really think you can win this war?”

Will didn’t answer. He sat silently in his seat, staring out the bullet-riddled windshield at the pulled-down steel garage door.

“I didn’t think so,” Zoe said, and leaned back against her seat for the night.

She must have fallen asleep, because when Gaby opened her eyes again, it was pitch dark inside the garage. The glow stick was still giving off light, so it couldn’t have been more than a few hours since she had dozed off.

She saw the back of Will’s head in the driver’s seat, along with the barrel of his M4A1 peeking out over the space between the two front seats. Nate was sleeping soundly in her lap with that stupid grin still on his face. There was the sound of snoring in front of her, the front passenger seat slightly reclined back.

Gaby picked up the AR-15 from the floor and leaned it between her leg and the door. Will had split his ammo with her — three magazines for the rifle and three more for the Glock. Only Will would carry that many spare magazines with him. One of his favorite sayings was that the only thing soldiers liked more than bullets was even more bullets. She felt better with the rifle next to her, and even better knowing they were loaded with the right kind of bullets. She stuffed the regular ammo she had snatched from the camp into her pack, just in case.

When she looked up, Will was holding something in front of her. She smiled and took it. “Thanks. Where’d you get it?”

“I grabbed a spare back at the Archers. Just in case.”

Gaby pulled off her shirt. It was still sticky with Nate’s blood, but more than that, it was the smell. She tossed it out the window and slipped on the new T-shirt, ripping the tag off the sleeve. It was a bit loose, but it fit well enough after she tucked it into her pants.

“How’s Nate?” Will asked.

“Out like a light.”

“His breathing?”

“Pretty normal.”

“Good.”

“What do you think? About Zoe.”

He didn’t answer right away. “She believes she’s doing what she has to. Taking care of the others.”

“Josh thought the same thing.” She remembered how earnest he looked while explaining his actions to her.

What happened to you in those three months, Josh?

“He really believed it,” she said. “Every single word of it. I don’t know if he’s changed that much, or if I have.” She paused. “Is it me, Will?”

“You’re still you, Gaby.”

“Am I?”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that training doesn’t change you. Training only brings out what’s already inside. You can’t turn shit into diamonds, but you can wipe away shit from one.”

Gaby smiled. “That’s a nice visual, Will, thanks.”

He chuckled. “This moment of Zen, courtesy of Danny.”

“He came up with that?”

“Yeah, a while back.”

“What do you think they’re doing right now on the island?”

“Danny’s probably making bad jokes, Carly’s probably rolling her eyes at him, and Lara is probably soaking in the tub. Naked. Looking beautiful…”

She smiled. “TMI.”

“Not nearly enough.”

“You wanna know something funny?”

“What’s that?”

“You and Lara are probably the most functional couple I’ve met.”

He turned around in his seat and grinned back at her. “Really.”

“Yeah. Sad, right?”

He shrugged. “Better than the alternative, I guess. Although she must be pretty pissed at me right about now.”

“You left Benny and the others before I could come back with the radio on purpose, didn’t you? So you wouldn’t have to tell her you weren’t coming back home.”

He didn’t answer her right away. After a while, he said, “Yeah.”

“That’s really shitty of you, Will. She’s probably worried out of her mind right now.”

“I didn’t know what to tell her.”

“She would have understood.”

“Maybe. But I was probably going to die out here, Gaby, and I didn’t want the last words she heard from me to be an excuse why I’m not coming back to her.”

“You chickened out.”

“I guess I did.”

“You’re an asshole, Will.”

“I know,” he said quietly.

Will was just as surprised as she was that they had made it through the night unscathed. They climbed out of the truck in the morning and threw open the garage doors, drinking in the warmth of the sun like drunks with their booze.

Gaby went back to check on Nate while Will wandered off. Both Nate and Zoe were still asleep in their seats. She had only gotten a few hours in last night, and Will had gotten even less than that, since every time she opened her eyes during the night he was still staring alertly at the garage doors.

Will didn’t return until twenty minutes later.

“Found one?” she asked.

He nodded. “How does a sports car sound?”

“As long as I can step on the gas and it goes, I’m good.”

They climbed back into the truck, and Will drove them over to the Phillips 66/Burger King next door. There were two vehicles lined up along the gas pumps — a red Ford Mustang GT and a slick-looking black GMC truck.

Zoe woke up when they were halfway there. “Where are we going now?”

“Next door,” Will said.

“Oh,” she said, sounding disappointed.

Will maneuvered the Ford until it was parked parallel with the Mustang, except the noses of the vehicles were pointed in opposite directions. The sports car would have looked shiny and new if not for the thick layer of eleven-month-old dust. Gaby got out of the truck with a rag and wiped down the thick grime that covered the front windshield. It gave way grudgingly, revealing the clean front seats underneath. No blood, and the key fob was sticking out of the ignition.

“How much would a car like this have cost me?” Gaby asked.

“$22,000 for the base model, easy,” Will said. “Twenty-five with some luxuries.”

“There goes the college fund.”

“Lucky for you, I’m going to take the F-150 in a straight-up trade.”

“Now that’s a deal,” a voice said behind her.

She looked over at Nate, peering out of the open truck door. “Lay back down,” she said.

“I’m fine.”

“Stop being an ass and lay back down.”

He smirked, then laid back down with his feet sticking out of the open door. “I’m really fine.”

Zoe was stretching lazily next to the truck. Gaby was surprised she hadn’t taken off running at the first opportunity. She would have, in the same situation.

“Give him a final look-over, doc,” Will said.

Zoe climbed back into the Ford. “How are you feeling?” she asked Nate.

“Like someone poured concrete on my head and then tried to bury me,” Nate said.

“That’s the Vicodin talking.”

Zoe swapped out Nate’s bloody bandages and put on fresh ones, while Gaby opened the Mustang’s unlocked driver side door. Dust erupted from the black leather seat as soon as she sat down. It would have been nice if she could roll down the windows, but that required power.

Will, meanwhile, had pulled out a siphoning tube from his pack and was sniffing the Mustang’s open gas tank. He had lined up the two vehicles and stuck one end of the tube into the Ford’s tank, then sucked on it until liquid started flowing slowly through the tube. He quickly stabbed the other end into the Mustang’s, transferring gas from one car to the other for about five minutes before cutting it off.

“Is that enough?” she asked.

“The Ford doesn’t have that much to give. You’ll need to search for more gas along the way, or find something else less shiny to drive.”

Will climbed back into the Ford and maneuvered it until it was parked nose-to-nose with the Mustang. He popped the truck’s hood, and Gaby fumbled around with the Mustang until she found a lever underneath the steering column. Pulling it, she heard the sports car’s hood pop open. Will climbed back out and Gaby watched him hook the jumper cables between the two batteries.

When he finally gave her the thumbs up, Gaby turned the key in the Mustang’s ignition. The car struggled for about five or six seconds before it finally turned over and roared to life, so loudly that Gaby instinctively pulled her foot off the gas to quiet the beast. She climbed out of the Mustang and left it running.

Zoe stood outside the truck, cleaning her hands on a rag that was already covered in dried blood.

“How is he?” Gaby asked.

“Better than yesterday,” Zoe said. “You’re taking him to the island?”

“That’s the plan.”

“How far is it from here?”

“Beaufont Lake,” Will said.

“I know where that is,” Zoe nodded. “I used to go fishing there with my dad when I was a kid. It’s nice. So you guys are on the island? Song Island, right?”

“Right,” Gaby nodded.

“So what about me?” She looked at Gaby, then at Will. “What happens to me now?”

“You’re coming with me,” Will said.

She frowned. “Why won’t you just let me go?”

“I will, but not yet.”

“When? I already told you everything I know.”

“I still need to know more.”

“But why?” she asked, sounding very much like a child.

“‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles,’” Will said.

Zoe sighed. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Are you really going to leave Will?” Nate asked.

He was reclining in the front passenger seat of the Mustang, stretching out his legs as far as they would go. She could hardly tell he had been shot twice yesterday unless she peeked underneath his shirt, where his entire left side was wrapped tightly in gauze. It helped that he wasn’t wearing his old, blood-covered shirt and had a bottle of generic Vicodin in his pocket.

“That’s the way he wants it,” she said.

She watched Will through the windshield, waiting for the gas inside the GMC to finish transferring over to the F-150. She could see the outline of Zoe’s head in the front passenger seat, probably still fuming.

“That’s what he wanted last time,” Nate said, “but you followed him out here anyway.”

“He also made a good point.”

“What’s that?”

“Take you to Song Island before you bleed to death.”

“I won’t bleed to death, Gaby. Zoe made sure of that. If you want to go where Will goes, I’m good with it.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Why?”

“Why are you so nice to me? Besides the fact you’re desperate to get into my pants, I mean.”

He chuckled. “What, that’s not enough?”

“No,” she said, still serious. “Why the devotion to someone you’ve only known for one day?”

“A day and a half.”

“Don’t deflect the question.”

“That wasn’t my intention.”

“Answer the question,” she pressed.

“Because you’re…you.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Besides the physical appearance — which is pretty damn spectacular, big nasty looking gash on your forehead and an outrageous amount of scars and bruises notwithstanding—”

She had to smile at that.

“—the rest of you is pretty awesome, too.”

“Like what?” she said.

“You’re really making this difficult.”

“What about me specifically makes you willing to risk your life over and over again? It can’t be just the potential for sex.”

He sighed. “The first time I saw you, I thought you might be it.”

“What’s that?”

“You know. It. The one. The girl I’ve been waiting for.”

She was speechless.

Nate laughed. “Oh, shit, now you’re going to make fun of me, aren’t you?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“No?”

She shrugged. “I asked, and you answered.”

“So…”

“So, what?”

“So…that’s it?” He gave her a strange look. “I confessed that the only reason I’ve been following you around like a lost puppy is because I have this totally abstract notion of you being ‘the one,’ and all you can do is shrug?”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Well, say something.”

“Thanks?”

“That’s it?”

“I told you, I don’t know what to say.”

“Hunh,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I would really like to kiss you right now, but I’m afraid you might punch me.”

“I probably would.”

“See?”

“If it makes you feel any better, the old me would be sucking face with you right about now.”

“Damn, really?”

“Absolutely.”

“Dammit.”

She smiled, then opened the door. “I’ll be right back.”

She climbed out of the Mustang and walked over to Will. He looked up from the gas tank as she approached.

“You’re still here,” he said.

“We decided we’re coming with you.”

“Gaby…”

“Nate’s fine.”

“And you believe him?”

“Yes.” Gaby leaned through the open F-150 window and looked across the front seat at Zoe. “How’s Nate? The truth.”

Zoe looked confused by the question. “He’s fine. Why?”

“Is he in any danger of bleeding to death anytime soon?”

“Unless he plans to get involved in a gladiator fight, then no.”

Gaby looked back at Will. “He’ll be fine. We’ll keep back, stay in support. Besides, if I go back without you, Lara is going to kill me.”

“No, Gaby,” he said.

“Why the hell not?”

He motioned for her to follow him. She did, and he led her almost to the very end of the parking lot. She glanced back at Zoe, realizing it was because he didn’t want the other woman to hear. Zoe had apparently come to the same conclusion, because she stared curiously after them.

“What is it?” she asked in a softer voice.

“I’m going to do some recon,” Will said. “That’s all. The truth is, I’m better on my own.”

“What about the doctor? You’re taking her with you.”

“She’s a necessity.”

“For what?”

“In case it gets FUBAR.”

She knew what that meant. FUBAR. Fucked Up Beyond All Reason. Military jargon for when everything you planned went completely awry. Will was doing what he always did. Hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst.

“She’s my bargaining chip,” Will continued. “But I can’t keep an eye on her and at the same time worry that Nate is going to bust a stitch and bleed to death. Even if it’s unlikely, the possibility exists. Besides, I need you to go back to the island and tell Lara I’m fine.”

“And you’re just doing recon,” she said doubtfully.

“That’s it,” he nodded.

“No hero stuff?”

“Scout’s honor.”

“You were never in the Scouts.”

“Let’s pretend I was.”

She stared at him, trying to read his face. He looked back at her, as cool and calm as he always was. Unflappable. Unreadable.

Like I could ever read him.

Gaby looked back at Zoe. “Can you trust her?”

“No,” Will said without hesitation.

“But you’re willing to risk it anyway.”

“I need to know.”

“Need to know what, Will?”

“What the hell they’ve been doing out here. Not just in the camps, with the pregnant women, but in these towns they’re taking over. I need to know if we can fight it, or if we even should.”

“If we even should? What does that mean?”

“Things have changed, Gaby. The world’s changed while we hid on the island. Why do you think they haven’t attacked us in three months?”

“Josh seemed to think it was because of him.”

“Josh is delusional,” Will said. “They haven’t been attacking us because we don’t matter to them. What’s a handful of humans trapped on an island compared to what they’ve been doing in these camps? We’re insignificant. That’s why they haven’t bothered.”

“Josh said the camps were just the start.”

“That’s what worries me. What’s on the other side of the camps?”

“The towns.”

“Yeah. The towns. I need to know for sure.”

She couldn’t blame him. The same questions had been bugging her ever since she learned what was going on in the camp. And that wasn’t even the end of the line. There were the towns…

“All right,” she said. Glancing over at the Mustang, she saw Nate curiously watching her back. “I’ll take Nate on ahead to the island. What should I tell Lara when I make contact?”

“Tell her I’ll be back by tomorrow. Later this evening, if everything works out.”

“Right,” she said, smirking back at him. “Because things have always worked out great for us in the past.”

CHAPTER 28 WILL

He didn’t move from the Phillips 66/Burger King until nine in the morning, about an hour after Gaby and Nate had left in the Mustang. When his watch clicked over to nine, he turned on the F-150 and pointed it out of the strip mall and back toward I-49 in the distance.

Zoe sat quietly in the front passenger seat through most of the trip. She didn’t speak until they were almost at the highway.

“You’re going to follow them to the town, aren’t you?” she finally asked.

“What makes you say that?”

“All those questions last night.”

“I guess there’s a reason they gave you a medical diploma.”

She snorted. “Are you always this much of an asshole?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

He turned left, merging back onto I-49 and slipping into the mostly barren northbound lane. They were the only thing moving for miles, which both comforted and concerned him. The fact that Josh hadn’t bothered to pursue them remained in the back of his mind. He had hardly slept at all last night, and had spent most of it listening for the sounds of car engines that never showed up.

What are you doing out there, Josh?

“So who’s Lara?” Zoe asked.

He thought about not answering.

“I’m just going to keep asking,” she said.

He sighed. “She lives on the island.”

“Is she your wife?”

“No.”

“Girlfriend?”

“I guess.”

“You guess? So you don’t know?”

“I haven’t really thought about it.”

“Oh no? I bet she has. A lot. That’s what we do, you know. We think about these type of things.”

“Good to know.”

“Wow, you must have majored in asshole in college.”

“Greek history.”

“Greek history?”

“Yeah.”

“You majored in Greek history in college? That was unfortunate.”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t talk much, huh?”

“No.”

“So Lara likes the strong, silent type, is that it?”

“You’d have to ask her.”

“Is that your way of telling me you won’t kill me after this?”

“I’m not going to kill you, Zoe.”

“No?” She stared at him for a moment, as if trying to gauge his trustworthiness. “I can take that to the bank?”

“Why do you think I’m going to kill you?”

“How the hell should I know. I never met you until yesterday, and back then you were named Givens. I don’t know anything about you. Why you’re doing what you’re doing, or how you could so cold-bloodedly shoot those two men back in the tent.”

“I had no choice.”

“You could have wounded them.”

“Too risky.”

“You’re good at it,” she said. It wasn’t a question. “The killing part.”

He didn’t answer.

“I guess everyone has something they’re good at,” she said, turning her head into the breeze outside her open window. “So why Greek history?”

“What do you have against the Greeks?”

“Nothing. Some of my best friends are Greeks.”

“Is that right?”

“No.”

“Hunh.”

“You’re a real conversationalist, Will.”

He went back to Sandwhite Wildlife State Park, but this time he didn’t take the off-ramp. Instead, he stopped a half kilometer from the exit and climbed out, then scanned the flat, gray concrete highway for signs.

Zoe looked at him strangely when he settled back into the Ford twenty seconds later. “What are you doing back here, Will? Do you have a death wish?”

“Not the last time I checked.”

He put the F-150 in drive and continued up the highway.

“So what are we doing back here?” she asked.

“You’ll see.”

“Great. Another surprise. You’re full of them, aren’t you?”

“You have a very acerbic sense of humor for a doctor.”

“Do I?”

“Yes.”

“I’m just trying to piss you off.”

“Hmm.”

“Not working?”

He shrugged and kept driving.

He didn’t stop again until he had almost passed Sandwhite completely, and only when he saw another on-ramp. He put the truck in park, climbed out, and saw what he had been looking for.

Large tire tracks caked in mud, curling from the on-ramp and onto I-49 heading northbound. They weren’t quite faded yet, so they weren’t more than a few hours old. The tracks overlapped, but not so much that he couldn’t tell there was more than one vehicle driving in a convoy. He guessed Josh was using either all or most of the military five-tons he had seen back at the camp.

Will climbed back into the Ford.

“Tire tracks,” Zoe said. “From the big transport trucks. You’re using the mud falling off them to track them. You’re smarter than you look.”

“I’m sure there’s a compliment in there somewhere.”

“They’re not going to last, you know. The tracks.”

“They’ll last long enough. I don’t see Josh moving that many people for that long of a distance. Like you said, it can get pretty hot in the back of those transports.”

“How did you know they would be heading north and not south toward us?”

“South takes them back into Lafayette. There aren’t any towns big enough to settle everyone at the camp between here and the city. There was always only one direction for them to go — north.”

“You really are smarter than you look,” she said.

Will grunted and drove on.

It wasn’t hard to track the trucks. The trails were visible from the high perch of the F-150, and he drove for thirty minutes or so, doing forty-five miles per hour because of the lack of traffic. After a while, the tracks turned right onto an off-ramp, then merged onto State Highway 106.

“Have you been here before?” he asked Zoe.

She shook her head. “No. But like I said, they have camps and towns everywhere. I’m sure there are more that I don’t even know about.”

He drove along the two-lane state highway for another ten minutes, passing mostly overgrown farmland, with the occasional stables or abandoned silent tractors, reminders that at one point people used to live and work here. Wild grass had begun to reclaim the land, and as soon as the buildings were covered up, there wouldn’t be any reminders at all that man once tilled them.

He passed a small bayou and kept going for another ten minutes. Houses began cropping up on both sides of the road. A pair of two-story farmhouses, one white and one slightly brown — or maybe it was faded or dirty white — stood next to each other.

Soon, the tracks told him to turn left along a new stretch of state highway.

More farmland, until he saw smoke rising in the distance. Will slowed down and, purely out of habit, pulled over to the side of the two-lane road.

There were three columns of smoke drifting lazily into the air farther up the road — two kilometers, give or take. Close enough for the sound of a car engine to be heard, especially with so few noises, except for the chirping of birds and clicking of crickets around them. He thought about Josh and how smart the kid was. An ambush or two wouldn’t be out of the question.

“The town,” Zoe said. “Looks like you found it.”

“Looks like it.”

“So what now?”

Will looked around at his surroundings.

More overgrown farmland, a long ditch, and the bayou curving slightly to his left before evening out to run parallel with the road again. He remembered passing a couple of farms back down the road.

“When was the last time you went for a walk, doc?”

Like most barns in rural America, the one he chose was painted red, with a slightly burnt orange shade. It was wide and long, and he had no trouble driving the Ford F-150 inside once he opened the large twin front doors.

There was enough darkness inside to worry about ghouls hiding in the shadows, forcing him to spend a few minutes poking around the old bales of unused hay on the first floor. He started breathing through his mouth against the metallic mold smell, stepping around spores along the back walls and floors that were visible in the bright pools of sunlight spilling in through holes that pockmarked the building. He finished by climbing up the rickety steps to the second floor and scanning in a complete 360.

Satisfied, he returned to the Ford and slipped on his pack, then shouldered the M4A1.

Zoe followed him out of the truck. “Are you going to kill me, Will?”

“You already asked me that.”

“I wanted to make sure you hadn’t changed your mind.”

“No,” he said. “I promise, I’m not going to harm you, Zoe.”

He pocketed the key fob and left the barn. After Zoe followed him out, he swung the big wooden doors closed, then made sure the latch caught.

“I don’t know what you expect to find here,” Zoe said. “It’s a town. With people. What else is there to see?”

“We’ll see.”

“Oh, clever.”

He started off, Zoe following behind him. He expected her to bolt at any moment, take her chances anywhere but with him, but she didn’t. Instead, she followed him quietly, the only noise coming from her footsteps.

Will glanced at his watch: 10:45 a.m.

He pointed them toward the smoke, keeping to the field of tall grass along the roads for cover.

“I should have worn hiking shoes,” Zoe said behind him.

“Stop complaining.”

“Says the guy with boots. I only have tennis shoes.”

“Tennis shoes are all-purpose.”

“Not when you’re walking across farmland. What kind of shoes does Lara wear?”

He didn’t answer.

“You don’t happen to have a pair of boots in that bag, do you?” she asked.

“I had a pair of shoes I picked up for Lara, but I had to throw them away.”

“Boots?”

“No.”

“Too bad. I could use a pair of boots. Even those clunky army boots. Tell me about Lara.”

He ignored her.

“Come on, you know you want to. Is she pretty? Blonde? Brunette? Probably pretty. I also bet you have a thing for blondes, don’t you?”

He pretended he couldn’t hear her.

“Who doesn’t like blondes? Everyone likes blondes. You wanna ask me if I’m a natural blonde?”

He didn’t.

“I am. In case you were wondering. Lara’s a blonde, right? I knew it. You don’t know it, but you have a type. You wanna know what it is?”

He kept walking, looking forward.

“You know you wanna,” she said. “Admit it, and I’ll tell you. Will? Can you hear me up there? God, you suck.”

“Is it everything you expected?” Zoe asked.

It looked like something out of an old Western, sections of the place separated into grids, all connected by one long main street. Brick and mortar buildings lined the sidewalks, their signs re-purposed with simple names like Bakery, Supplies, Clinic, and one for Administration. There were more he couldn’t see from his vantage point. Smoke drifted out from chimneys.

Apartments were interspersed among the businesses, and people were moving leisurely on the other side of open windows and fluttering curtains. A woman was hanging laundry, while a redheaded kid leaned over the windowsill watching the streets below. A pair of preteens in shorts raced along the sidewalk, dodging adults.

What end of the world?

There was a fountain in the town square, where a big white tent had been set up. Transport trucks were parked nearby, and a line of people stood in a semi-organized circle that snaked around the tent. Armed figures in hazmat suits moved among them, but unlike back at the camp, these men looked alert.

They’re expecting trouble.

He was lying flat on top of a small hill about 200 meters from the edge of town, peering through binoculars. Zoe sat behind him, rubbing her feet.

There were no gunmen on the rooftops that he could see, which made the place look more accommodating than it really was. Or maybe it really was that welcoming? He remembered what Jenkins, the man he had met yesterday in the camp and who had tried to squeeze him for information about the towns, had said. The man was anxious, even eager, to finally get settled.

“I think I made the right decision. Still, it would be nice to finally get to one of these towns I keep hearing about. Get on with living.”

A low rumble preceded the appearance of two military five-ton transport trucks, entering the other side of town. They moved through the street, coming to a loud, crunching stop behind the other parked vehicles next to the white tent.

People hopped out of the back of the first truck. Men and women stretching, shaking hands and hugging. An air of happiness, of a long journey finally come to a fruitful end, showed on their faces. A pair of women with clipboards appeared, greeting the newcomers, while teenagers pushed carts and handed out bottled water and food. Pregnant women were helped down the back of the second truck, and they automatically became the center of attention.

“What’s happening in the white tent?” Will asked.

“The one with everyone lining up outside?” Zoe asked.

“Yes.”

“Processing. It’s where they sign in to the town and get assigned housing. Later, they’re given work details.”

“Work details?”

“It’s a town, Will. People have to run it. They’re given work based on their qualifications. For instance, I would get assigned to the clinic.”

“So what poor slob gets garbage duty?”

“I guess whoever doesn’t have a skill they could use somewhere else. Isn’t that what you do on the island? Delegate jobs?”

She had a point, but he decided to keep that to himself. He said instead, “And anyone can come and go as they please?”

“That’s the idea.”

“But you don’t know for sure.”

“I’ve never seen anyone leave. Why would they want to? Everything they need is there. Food. Water. Shelter. And they don’t have to be scared at night.”

“Bottled water?”

“The towns I’ve been to all had spring wells. I’m guessing this one does too, or they wouldn’t have settled here.”

“And the creatures, they don’t come into town at nights?”

“I’ve never seen them.”

“How do they know to stay away?”

“Probably the same way they know not to harm the guys in hazmat suits.”

Kate tells them. Or one of the other blue-eyed ghouls.

The line outside the tent moved slowly, but no one seemed to mind. He couldn’t hear their chatter from where he lay, but their body movements told him everything. This was where they wanted to be, and the overwhelmingly positive energy emanating from them was hard to miss.

Will watched them in silence for a moment.

“It’s a good deal,” he said finally, grudgingly. “As long as the townspeople keep feeding them blood.”

“Donating,” Zoe said.

“Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.”

“They’re not like you, Will. They’re not soldiers. They’re just trying to survive the end of the world the best they can.”

“Why did they choose the small towns? Why not the bigger cities with all the supplies still on the shelves? Just for the well water?”

“I never asked.”

“You don’t have any theories?”

“You’ll think I’m crazy.”

“Indulge me.”

“The others and I were talking — the other medical staff — and we think it’s because they want us to start over. A fresh start. The cities are filled with reminders of the old world. Our achievements, our art, our evolution as human beings. Out here, surrounded by farmland, woods… It’s like going back to our roots. No power, no electricity… It’s easier to believe the last two centuries never happened.”

“Back to the olden days, is that it?”

“Something like that,” Zoe said. “I know you don’t approve of this, Will. But those people down there, they want to be there. What right do you have to tell them they can’t?”

“It’s unnatural.”

“According to you. Who gave you the power to decide for them what they should or shouldn’t do with their lives? Look around you, Will. The world as we know it is gone. It’s not your place to tell anyone what to do with however many days, weeks, or months they have left.”

Goddammit, she makes a good point.

Will crawled back to her and slipped the binoculars into his pack. He pulled out a bottle of water, took a sip and offered her the rest. She drank hungrily from it and didn’t stop until she had almost drained it.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said.

She gave him a surprised look. “Really?”

“Don’t be so surprised.”

“Sorry,” she smiled.

“I don’t have the right to tell anyone down there what to do with their lives.”

He saw her face softening, maybe even looking a little bit pleased. “So what happens now?”

Good question. What happens now?

He didn’t answer her right away. Will looked up at the cloudless sky. It was bright and warm, with barely anything resembling a breeze. It would be different on the island. There was always a nice wind blowing across Beaufont Lake. Cool lake water and soft, mushy sand under his feet. And Lara. He missed Lara most of all.

“Will?” Zoe said. “What happens now?”

“I go back to the island and you can head into town. The people down there are from the camp I took you from, so they’ll know you didn’t go with me willingly. You shouldn’t have too much trouble fitting right back in.”

“Thanks.”

“You really think I was going to shoot you?”

She smirked. “You did shove a gun against my temple the first time we met.”

He chuckled. “Point taken—” he started to say, but stopped when he heard the crunch crunch of heavy boots against dry, brittle grass behind him, coming from the other side of the hill.

Will unslung his rifle as Zoe froze, alarmed by his sudden movements. He crawled back to the top of the hill and looked down.

Three men in hazmat suits were moving steadily up the other side, the sun reflecting off their bright white suits. Two of them were wearing their gas masks, while the third had his clipped to his hip. They were near the very bottom of the hill and seemed to be struggling with their footing.

He saw them about a second before they spotted his head peering over the crest of the hill, and instantly one of them opened fire with an AK-47. When that happened, the other two began shooting, too.

Will ducked his head as the dirt and grass around him exploded, chunks flickering into the air. He slid his way back down to Zoe.

Her eyes were wide and glued to him. “What’s happening?”

“I’ll see you around, doc.” He leaped to his feet and raced down the hillside, then threw a quick look over his shoulder at Zoe. “Stay down so you don’t get shot!”

Will hopped the last three meters down to the bottom of the hill and continued running at full speed. It didn’t take very long for gunfire to fill the air again, bullets speckling the ground to the left and right of him.

But they were lousy shots, and as amazing as it seemed, each subsequent new round seemed to land further and further away from him. He didn’t bother to return fire, and instead concentrated on adding more distance between him and the hill. He pretended as if he weren’t running away from gunfire, but running back toward Lara.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

After thirty seconds of nonstop sprinting, he had extended his lead enough that the shooting stopped. That allowed him to slow down to a nice, unhurried pace.

Like running in the park…while being shot at.

He thought about Lara and the island again. Sarah’s cooking, Danny’s corny jokes, and watching the girls, Elise and Vera and Sarah’s daughter Jenny, being girls. But most of all, his mind’s eye was filled with images of Lara.

It didn’t take long before he felt shooting pain from his thigh, the everlasting gift from the helicopter crash. It had been so long since he noticed he was even injured down there that the sudden jolts took him momentarily by surprise. He pushed it into the back of his mind, then away entirely.

It worked…for a few seconds.

Lara could take care of that. Back on the island.

Back to Lara…

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the glint of blue metal and heard the loud, familiar roar of man-made machinery before he even glanced to his right side and saw it.

It was a big blue truck, emerging from around the wide base of the hill.

It was moving fast — and was pointed right at him like a heat-seeking missile. There were two men in the back of the truck, wearing hazmat suits and holding on for dear life as the truck slid, crunched, and spun against the loose ground under its massive tires.

The truck sped right at him, gobbling up the distance between them in the blink of an eye.

FUBAR. Definitely FUBAR.

Will spun around, lifted the M4A1, flicked the fire selector to full-auto, and pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER 29 GABY

They took I-49 southbound back into Lafayette, doing thirty-five miles per hour because Gaby didn’t quite trust her driving skills. It wasn’t like she had a lot of practice on the highways, especially in something as souped up as the Mustang GT. Thankfully, there weren’t a whole lot of obstacles for her to maneuver around, though she knew all that would change once they neared the city.

“I’ll drive once we get closer,” Nate said.

She glanced briefly over at him. He did look a lot better. Then again, it wasn’t hard to improve on yesterday, when he was covered in his own blood and half dead. And she had seen him driving with one hand back at the camp, with people shooting at them. Even Will had looked impressed.

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Really?” he smiled. “I was expecting a fight.”

“Goes to show you don’t really know me.”

“Point taken.”

She found herself looking forward to reaching Beaufont Lake by midafternoon, and the image of riding a boat back to Song Island, over the familiar calm of the lake’s surface, made her smile into the wind outside the open window.

Nate noticed. “What was that? Was that a smile? Holy shit, now that’s hot.”

“Don’t be an asshole.”

“My bad.”

“‘My bad’? I haven’t heard that in a while. The last person who said that—” She didn’t finish, because the last person who had said that was Josh.

Back in Beaumont.

Back when he was still…Josh.

What happened to you, Josh?

“What’s wrong?” Nate asked. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I was just thinking about a friend.”

“I’m sure Will’s fine.”

“Not Will…”

“Oh.” It took him a moment, then he nodded knowingly. “That kid back in the camp? What was his name, Josh?”

“Yeah.”

“You guys were more than friends. That’s the sense I got, anyway.”

“We were.”

“A lot more?”

She nodded.

“I’m sorry,” Nate said.

“Don’t be sorry. It had nothing to do with you.”

“What happened to him? How does a kid that young become one of those guys? It seemed like he was leading them, too. They wouldn’t shoot us because we were using him as a shield, right?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Was he always like that?”

“No. That Josh back there…” She struggled for the right words. “It wasn’t the Josh I knew. We survived together. Josh and me, and another guy named Matt. For eight months. We hid and ran and survived together in one dark, dank basement after another. We hadn’t met Will yet at the time. We were just three stupid kids. Honestly, I don’t know how we managed to survive for so long.”

“What happened to Matt?”

“We lost him.”

“Wow, I’m a total idiot. Sorry.”

She gave him a pursed smile. “You didn’t know.”

“I should have, though. I’ve been out here for a long time too, and what else would have happened to Matt if not…for what happened to him.”

“It’s okay.”

They didn’t say anything for a while, and she was grateful for the silence.

Of course, it didn’t last.

“So, this island,” Nate said. “It’s got rooms, hot showers, and a never-ending supply of fish?”

“Uh huh.”

“Awesome. Because I love all three of those things. Especially the hot shower part. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I haven’t showered in, oh, about two months.”

She wrinkled her nose. “That explains the smell.”

Traffic along the I-49 started clogging up about four miles out of Lafayette, and eventually Gaby didn’t trust her driving enough to keep going. She slowed down, then stopped altogether and put the GT into park.

She looked over at Nate as he was unbuckling his belt. “Are you sure you can drive?”

“Gaby, it’s two things — stepping on the gas and turning the steering wheel. I only need one arm for that.”

She nodded, and they climbed out of the GT and switched places.

Gaby laid her AR-15 across her lap for easy access, while Nate adjusted the seat to accommodate his longer frame. He put the car back into drive, looking very comfortable driving with one hand, and soon she forgot to keep an eye on him.

Nate drove up the highway for a while, before the congestion forced him onto the shoulder. The GT scraped by a couple of stalled vehicles, the loud grinding of paint against paint like a banshee’s shrill cry.

“Try not to lose any more paint,” Gaby said. “It’s my first sports car.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Soon, Nate had slowed down to ten miles per hour — then five, until they were essentially crawling along the highway. Gaby wondered if they would make better time if they got out and started walking. It had been so much easier yesterday in the Beetle, but of course there was a reason for that. The road out of Lafayette had been cleared by the Humvees and their steel plows, whereas the road back in was still stuffed with vehicles abandoned eleven months ago.

“There’s less traffic over on the northbound lane,” Gaby said. “Maybe we should switch over before we get any further into the city, use the path those Humvees cleared out for us.”

“Good idea.”

They were still far enough outside the city limits that the highway’s lanes weren’t partitioned with concrete dividers yet, so there was nothing to keep Nate from crossing over onto the northbound lane. After that, he was able to push the GT back up to fifteen miles per hour, then twenty.

“And they say girls are bad with directions,” Nate said.

“I think you’ve got the genders mixed up there, buckaroo.”

He chuckled. “‘Buckaroo’?”

“Something I picked up from this guy named Danny. You’ll meet him on the island.”

“I don’t have to fight him for your affections, do I?”

“Why? You don’t think you can win a fight for my affections?”

“Right now I’m a bit gimpy. I do have two bullet holes in me, you know. Give me a break.”

“Still, a real man would work through those disabilities.”

“Now you’re just trying to hurt my feelings.”

“Is it working?”

“Just a tad,” he said, pinching his thumb and forefinger together.

Lafayette was a lot thicker with traffic than she remembered. By the time they reached the Marabond Throughway, they had already been forced off the highway and onto the feeder roads.

And Gaby was glad for it. She had greeted the idea of retreading the same stretch of I-10 where Jen’s helicopter had fallen out of the sky only a few days ago with dread. She and Nate had managed to avoid the site entirely the last time only because he had insisted on using the feeder roads before hopping onto the I-49.

There was a chance Jen, Amy, and the kid with the button nose were still up there. Will and Danny theorized that the ghouls took dead bodies for whatever reason, but no one really knew for sure. Gaby hadn’t then, and still didn’t now, feel like finding out either way.

So they took the feeder roads again, and while it was slow going because of the GT’s width, she didn’t complain. It was difficult to get through most of the heavy pileups, but the Mustang was strong enough to bully its way through most obstacles in their path. By the time they were driving parallel to the I-10 heading westward, Nate was spending more time on the sidewalks than in the streets.

“Car’s not going to last for long,” he said. “The grill looks like a pretzel, and we might have to slide out the window Dukes of Hazzard style pretty soon.”

“Maybe we should start looking for a replacement.”

“Shout if you see something. Maybe another Beetle. Or even better, a motorcycle or ATV.”

She kept an eye out, but every car was either a sedan that wasn’t much of an improvement over the GT, or a truck. Lafayette, like Texas, had a healthy inventory of trucks.

“How’s the gas look?” she asked.

“Dangerously low. And it might take a day just to get out of here. Too bad you don’t still have the helicopter.”

“Yeah…”

Nate sighed. “Shit, I’m sorry, Gaby. I know you lost friends in that crash. I need to think before I talk.” He paused, then added, “I have a big mouth. Everyone says so. I’m sorry. Shit, I’m so sorry.”

She didn’t know why she did it, but Gaby leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek. Then she quickly sat back down and stared out the front windshield as if nothing had happened.

“I should shoot my big mouth off more often,” Nate said.

“Is it near here?” she asked.

“Across the highway,” Nate said.

“We should swing over.”

“Why?”

“I need to grab another radio to contact the island. They must be sick with worry by now.”

She was talking about the pawnshop, the same place they had found the ham radios two days ago. They were coming to the intersection now, and Nate took a left and went under the I-10. Another block later and they were at the familiar strip mall with Leroy’s and its bent burglar bars.

Nate parked in front of the pawnshop, and Gaby climbed out with her rifle and looked around. There was always something about the stillness of a city that made her paranoid, as if she could feel the ghosts of the former occupants watching her from every window, every door. It was unnerving, and she shivered slightly.

The muddy, foreboding look from the clouds didn’t help to calm her nerves. It was barely one in the afternoon, but it already looked like four or five, as if darkness were trying to creep up on her.

“See if you can find us another car,” she said.

“Not a whole lot of choices,” Nate said, scanning the area.

The parking lot didn’t have much to offer, though at this point any vehicle they could get running was preferable to the Mustang. She didn’t realize what bad shape the vehicle was in until she had to literally kick the jammed door open. A good chunk of the door was sliced, as if some wild, mechanical animal had gone to town on it with steel claws; the grill was hanging miraculously by a few random wires.

She went into Leroy’s, using the same section of broken windows she had crawled through two days earlier. There were still patches of darkness in the back of the store where the sun couldn’t reach, which made her sling the rifle and draw her Glock. She preferred the handgun in close quarters.

Gaby stood still for a long moment, sniffing the air, listening to every sound. There was just the soft wind outside the store and the quiet patter of her heartbeat. She scanned the darkness, waiting, waiting…

Come out, come out, wherever you are.

When nothing came out, she breathed a little easier, went around the counter, and grabbed one of the radios, then pulled a pack of batteries from a nearby rack. She crawled out of the pawnshop and stood back up under the moody skies.

It had gotten so dark so quickly that for a moment Gaby was taken aback.

It’s going to rain…

She put the radio on the badly damaged hood of the Mustang and plugged in the new batteries, then powered up the radio and spun the dial until she found the designated emergency frequency. She knew it by heart. Everyone did, even the kids. Will had made sure of that, in case they ever found themselves out here and needed to contact the island.

Hope for the best, expect the worse, right, Will?

She just hoped someone was monitoring it on the island at the moment.

Gaby picked up the microphone and pressed the transmit lever. “Song Island, come in, this is Gaby. Can anyone hear me over there? Over.”

She released the lever and watched Nate peer inside a white Ford Fusion across the lot. She guessed he was looking for a key. After a while, he gave up and moved to the next car, a gray two-door Kia hatchback.

“This can’t possibly be Gaby,” a voice said through the radio, “because the Gaby I knew was a virgin when she left us a few days ago, but I’m hearing stories of sex in hospitals and other shenanigans.”

She smiled at the sound of his voice. “I miss you too, Danny.”

“Oh, shit, it is Gaby!” Danny said. “How the hell are you, kid?”

“Alive and kicking.”

“Good to hear it. What about the other guy? Willard or something.”

“He was fine the last time I saw him. We split up this morning.”

“Lara’ll be glad to hear that. Personally, I don’t know what she sees in him. But back to you. Where you calling from, kid?”

“I’m still in Lafayette, looking for a new ride.” A dark patch of shadow fell over her and Gaby glanced up at the darkening skies. “I’m not sure I’m going to make it back today, Danny. It’s looking like it might rain.”

“I can see the clouds from here. Must look even worse up close.”

“I’ve definitely seen brighter days.”

“How are you for shelter?”

She looked around her at the strip mall. A Family Dollar store, a Wallbys Pharmacy on the other side, and a small mom-and-pop ice cream shop next to a Subway. The pawnshop behind her was probably the most secure building in the entire area, thanks to the burglar bars.

“Manageable,” she said.

“Took you a while to answer that,” Danny said.

“Just getting my bearings.”

“Are you alone?”

“I’m with someone. We’ve been traveling with Will since yesterday.”

“How is he or she with a gun?”

“Not bad. We’ll be fine if we have to stay the night. How is everyone over there? Are you guys managing without me?”

“So far, so good. Hey, Lara’s here.”

“Gaby,” Lara said, her voice sounding breathless over the line. Gaby imagined her racing to the Tower as soon as Danny radioed her. “Are you okay? Where’s Will?”

“I’m fine. And Will was fine when I saw him this morning.”

“What happened? Did you guys split up again?”

“He sent me back while he went to do some reconning.”

“What’s he reconning?”

Gaby told her about the camp and the pregnant women. About the towns, where people were being relocated, and everything Zoe had told them last night.

Then Gaby added, almost as an afterthought, “Josh was there. He’s still alive.”

“Josh is still alive?” Lara said, the shock registering even over the radio. “How is that possible?”

Gaby told her. Josh falling into the lake. Getting fished out by the collaborators. When she got around to what Josh had become, how he had been working with the ghouls, her voice threatened to break and she had to choke back the emotions.

She found, to her surprise, that she was more angry than sad.

Dammit, Josh. What the hell are you doing?

She was angry at him for thinking he needed to protect her and for putting it all on her. And she was angry for the loss of Jen and Amy and the button-nosed kid. The last few days only served to remind her all over again of how much she had lost, how much she still stood to lose.

Nothing lasts forever anymore. Not even my fond memories of dead loved ones.

“Oh, Gaby,” Lara said. “I’m sorry. Are you sure you can’t make it back today?”

She looked up at the sky again, at the gray clouds moving in. “It’s looking pretty bad, Lara. I’m not sure we should risk it.”

“What about shelter for the night?”

“There’s a pawnshop that could work.”

“Where is it exactly, in case we need to find you later?”

“It’s in a strip mall at the intersection of Weston Street and Pillar Street, a couple of blocks from the I-10 freeway.”

“And it looks safe?”

“It might be our best option right now. That, or go look for a house with a basement.”

“It’s your call, Gaby, you’re the one over there. We’ll still be here tomorrow, and the day after that.”

She watched Nate all the way across the parking lot, peering in at a white Dodge.

“How are Benny and the others?” she asked. “Are they fitting in?”

“Fish and cold drinks, hot showers and clean rooms,” Lara said. “What’s not to like? By the way, Benny’s been asking a lot about you. Is there something I should know?”

“It was a one-time thing.”

“Does he know that?”

“He’s a guy,” she said.

Lara laughed. “Take it easy on him. He seems like a nice kid.”

“He is.” Nate was walking back toward her now, twirling a key ring on one finger and looking very proud of himself. “Lara, I have to go for now. I’ll call back in about an hour with an update, let you know if we decide to push on down south or if we’re packing it in for the day.”

“It’s good to hear your voice again, Gaby. You had us really worried.”

“I’m sorry we didn’t call earlier. Things were…hectic the last couple of days.”

“I know about Mercy Hospital. I’m just glad you’re both alive.”

“Will wanted me to tell you that he expects to be back by tonight, maybe tomorrow at the latest.”

“And he said he was just doing some reconning?”

“He promised me no hero stuff.”

“And he’s fine…?”

“He had all of his teeth, yeah.”

Lara laughed again. Gaby could tell it was nervous laughter. She couldn’t imagine what Lara had been through the last few days, and she felt guilty for having gone so long without radioing back home.

“That’s good to hear,” Lara said. “I’ve always been fond of his teeth.”

“I’ll see you soon, Lara. If not today, then the day after. Who knows, Will might actually beat me back to the island.”

“Hope springs eternal. All right, go do what you have to do, then call me back in an hour.”

“One hour.”

She put the mic down as Nate leaned against the hood across from her.

“Song Island?” he asked.

She nodded. “What did you find?”

He held up the key, then pointed to a small, blue four-door Toyota Yaris in front of the Wallbys. “Small enough for ya?”

“Does it run?”

“Let’s find out,” Nate said.

The Yaris was still in relatively good condition. It was a small, painfully compact car, though somehow it had managed to build in four doors anyway. The leg room wasn’t anything to crow about, but since they would be in the front seats anyway, that wasn’t really a consideration.

Gaby went through the glove compartment while Nate used a hose they had found in Leroy’s to siphon gas from the GT into the Yaris, leaving just enough in the Mustang to jumpstart the Yaris’s dead car battery. When the Yaris was running again, they smiled at each other.

“Song Island?” he said.

She nodded. “Why not? Song Island or bust—” She hadn’t finished when a drop of water hit her on the head. Gaby sighed. “Or not.”

It had gotten much darker while they weren’t paying attention, and as soon as she looked up, more drops of rain splattered the car’s dirty roof.

“Well, at least the car’ll be clean by the time we get to Song Island,” Nate said.

“Captain Optimist,” Gaby smirked.

“Captain what?”

“Nothing. Get in.”

They climbed back into the Toyota just as the rain really began coming down, pelting and washing away the dust and grime from the front windshield.

“Let’s drive it around to charge up the battery,” Nate said. “We can decide what to do in the meantime.”

She drove in circles along the parking lot while the rain poured down around them, the unrelenting tapping against the roof sounding like gunfire. Twenty minutes later, with the rain still making puddles over the parking lot, Gaby drove back to Leroy’s and put the Yaris into park.

She looked over at Nate. “Tomorrow?”

“Probably the smart thing to do.”

“Should we look for another place?”

“We might not find one with burglar bars.”

“Yeah, but those burglar bars aren’t exactly in place.”

“I could bend them back into place.”

She gave him a doubtful look.

“What?” he said. “I absolutely could, even with just one good arm.”

“What about the house you guys were staying in?”

“It’s up to you. I’m good either way. Pawnshop or dank basement?”

She thought about it. “I used to live out of dank basements. Never was a big fan of it. Besides, they didn’t bother with the pawnshop before, even with the bent bars. There shouldn’t be any reason for them to pay attention to it now. Right?”

“Are you trying to convince yourself or me?”

“Both?”

He shrugged. “There was a door at the back. Looked like an office. It would probably be a lot more comfortable than a basement.”

She thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “All right. Let’s hope it has a couch at least.”

Gaby grabbed her rifle and pack and hurried out, rushing through the wall of rain. Nate followed her into the pawnshop, the two of them crawling through inch-high puddles. Water had flooded in through the broken glass opening and reached all the way to the back in thick, cold rivulets.

They were shivering from the wetness and the cold chilly air by the time they made their way into an office in the back, where they found a big desk with bags of old chips that had gone rancid months ago inside one of the drawers. A small fridge in the corner held warm bottled water along with some spoiled food.

Gaby left the office door open to ventilate the room of the thick smell of abandonment. There was just enough sunlight from outside to light their movements. The room had two doors — the one into the pawnshop and another one in the back. There were, thankfully, no windows to worry about, and the place hadn’t been touched in eleven months, which put her mind further at ease.

She opened the back door by sliding the deadlock and leaning out, saw a large forest clearing behind the strip mall. A bulldozer sat in the middle, surrounded by muddy water. Two trash dumpsters stood sentry at the end of the lot, rainwater bouncing off their lids.

“Anything good back there?” Nate asked from behind her.

“Just a couple of dumpsters.”

She closed the door and locked it, then walked over to an old leather couch next to the desk and fell down with a loud, satisfied whump!

Nate sat down next to her and handed her one of the warm bottles from the fridge. “This is the life, huh? How could you possibly ask for anything more than this?” He sniffed the air. “What in God’s name is that smell, anyway?”

“Abandonment,” Gaby said.

“Oh. I was afraid it was me.”

She drank from her bottle, then opened her pack and took out some beef jerky Will had given her earlier. She handed one to Nate.

“I must have eaten a hundred of these things,” Nate said. “They’re starting to taste really gamey.”

“Better than nothing, so stop complaining.”

“Why are you always so bossy?”

She smiled and ate her beef jerky without any hurry, listening to the tap-tap-tap of the rain against the roof.

“How’s your arm?” she asked.

“A little sore.”

“You have any pills left?”

He fished out the bottle of generic Vicodin from his pants pocket and shook it, listened to the clink-clink of pills inside. “Should get me to the island in one piece. Lara’s a doctor, right?”

“Third-year medical student.”

“Close enough.”

He opened the bottle and swallowed a couple of pills, then sat back with a sigh. She sat quietly next to him, enjoying the tap-tap-tap of the rain above them and the stillness of the building.

“What do you think Will’s doing now?” Nate said after a while. “You think it’s raining where he’s at?”

“I don’t know. It looks like a pretty big storm. Danny could see it from the island.”

“Good,” Nate said. “This city could use a little cleansing flood.”

CHAPTER 30 WILL

Will had almost died — really, really almost died — only once in his life. That was thirty years ago when he had been born. The doctors told his parents he was a complicated pregnancy and that there was a very good chance he would die during childbirth, along with his mother. His parents, perhaps with more than a little of the famous stubbornness people often accused him of, refused to accept the diagnosis. Especially Will’s mother, Charlene (Charlie to her friends). Will was born one week early, fighting and screaming and gasping for air. He lived, and so did his mother.

So death wasn’t anything new to Will, even if he didn’t exactly remember any of the details of the last time it had come for him.

This time, though, he remembered every second of it in excruciating detail.

The bullet chopped into his side, just above the waist. It was a through-and-through, which was the good news. The bad news was the ground exploding and clumps of dirt and grass cascading all around him like waterfalls.

Will continued squeezing the trigger on the M4A1. The magazine burned through half of its load in a matter of seconds, and the carbine felt lighter in his hands with every passing heartbeat as a result.

It was a Ford Bronco, maybe ten years old by the looks of its paint job and well-worn front grill, and Will aimed for the front windshield. He stitched it from forty meters away and kept firing as it kept coming. The truck’s entire front windshield crumpled under the volley, and the driver jerked on the steering wheel as bullets slammed into him.

The truck made a sharp (too sharp) turn and spun, sending the two men in hazmat suits in the back flying across the air as if they had been shot out of a cannon. It helped that the two idiots were too busy shooting at him to hold on to the vehicle. One of the men landed on the ground a split second before the truck came tumbling over and crushed him into the dirt as if he were an ant. The truck continued rolling until it finally smashed into a meter-deep ditch that cut across the farmland, depositing window fragments and pieces of sheared metal into the surrounding grass.

Will quickly searched out and found the other man who had been tossed from the truck. He lay twenty-five meters away and looked unconscious.

He didn’t have a lot of time to take in the wreckage before the air was filled with new gunfire and the land erupted with dirt and grass again.

The three men who had been chasing him from the hill were coming, but they were still a good fifty meters away. They were also running and shooting at the same time, which from experience Will knew wasn’t exactly the best way to hit a target — even one that was standing still the way he was.

He calmly ejected the spent magazine and slipped in a new one, then flicked the fire selector to semi-auto. He willed his breathing to slow down, pushing aside the adrenaline keeping him upright despite the flow of blood pouring out of him.

Lara could deal with that later.

He took a deep breath and shot the closest man in the chest. The man looked as if someone had tied a rope around his neck and had suddenly yanked on it. One second he was on his feet, running full-speed, and the next he was lying in the thick grass, unmoving.

Will swiveled, and as he took aim on another target, a bullet came dangerously close to scalping him. He flinched and shot the second man, aiming for the chest, but got him in the hip instead. The man stumbled and went into a crouch. Will blinked sweat out of his eyes, then shot the man again, this time getting him in the chest. The man toppled forward and into the tall blades of grass.

The third man had reached the overturned Bronco and he dived behind it for cover.

Will turned and resumed jogging back toward the barn, ignoring the scorching pain from his right side. He put a hand down there, hoping to slow the bleeding at least just a little bit. He shouldn’t have bothered, because his hand was soaked with gushing blood almost immediately. What didn’t cover up his hand poured out behind him. He was probably leaving a wet, bloody trail that even a blind man could follow.

The third guy found his courage and leaned out far enough to take a shot at him. A bullet buzzed past his head, but Will ignored it and kept jogging. The guy shot again, but the bullet landed well off target this time.

Someone needs target practice, he thought, chuckling to himself. Or did he?

Will slowed down until he was just walking now. Briskly. Maybe. It felt like a brisk walking pace, but he could have been just imagining that part. Just like he was probably making up the sudden reemergence of pain from that piece of glass he had pulled out of his leg two days ago.

Phantom pain. That’s all it is.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

He couldn’t hear any more shooting behind him. Maybe the guy had given up? Or maybe he was waiting to get closer so he could put a bullet in the back of Will’s head. Either/or. Will just didn’t feel like running anymore. This brisk walking pace was good enough. Probably.

The burnt orange barn with the stashed Ford F-150 was visible in the distance, still about half a kilometer away. It looked like a tiny red dot under the clear, bright sky.

The sun was very high up today, raining heat mercilessly down on him. God, it was hot all of a sudden. Will blinked once, twice, and for a moment almost lost his bearing against sunspots forming and bursting repeatedly in his line of sight.

He reached into his pack and pulled out the first bottle his fingers groped. He didn’t bother reading the label. He twisted off the cap with some effort, swaying a bit, and shook two pills into his mouth.

He paused for a second, then gulped down two more.

Better safe than sorry, right?

He snapped the cap back on the bottle and shoved it into one of the empty pockets on his cargo pants. He had a feeling he’d need it again pretty soon anyway. Easier access and all that.

His vision started to blur, and he thought he could hear the sound of water dripping against the grass. Like rain on a rooftop. He wasn’t even moving that fast anymore, and he still kept expecting the third guy to finally catch up and shoot him in the back of the head from point blank range.

Any moment now, buddy. Any moment now…

How far had he walked, anyway? Ten meters? Twenty? Fifty? It felt like half a day.

Surely, he was almost at the barn?

Then why was the goddamn red dot still a tiny red dot in the distance?

Every other second he expected to hear gunshots. Or the familiar drone of a pursuing vehicle. Did they only have one truck in the entire town? Probably not. He remembered seeing those five-tons. What other vehicles were in the town? Maybe not that many. He remembered the empty streets, people walking around. Like that couple with those two kids…

Back to the Stone Age. The only thing missing are horses and carriages. Yee haw.

The red dot in the distance started jumping from left to right, then right to left. Or was that him? When did he stop moving in a straight line?

It wasn’t long before he heard voices. At first he thought he was muttering to himself. That was a bad sign. Talking to yourself was not good, especially after you’d been shot.

But then he noticed the sound was coming from behind him.

Finally caught up, huh, buddy? Good for you. Good for you…

But the voice sounded familiar and female, and he distinctively remembered the third guy being male. A big guy. Kind of fat. Definitely not female.

Lara?

What the hell was Lara doing all the way out here? She was supposed to be on Song Island, safe and sound. He did a lot to get her there, because he cared for her. Hell, he loved her. Had he told her that before he left the island? God, he hoped he had. It would suck if she didn’t know how he felt.

She probably hated his guts by now. He didn’t blame her. He should have called her days ago. He should have waited for Gaby to come back with the radio and called her. She would have understood.

Lara…

The voice was insistent and calling his name. And it was getting closer.

Lara, for God’s sake, what are you doing out here? It’s not safe.

He couldn’t put his thoughts into words, because when he opened his mouth, only haggard breathing came out.

And it was painful. And difficult.

And really, really painful.

So he stopped trying.

But the voice persisted, and soon Will felt something against his left arm. He tried to lift his rifle to fight back, but it was too hard, and he surrendered. Something warm and soft pushed against him, and Will looked over, but he couldn’t see much of anything through the sheets of sweat covering his eyes.

Or was that blood?

God, he hoped he wasn’t bleeding from the head. That would really suck.

“Jesus, you’re dying,” the familiar female voice (Not Lara) said.

Will grunted. He wasn’t certain if he had successfully formed words with his sounds, but he must have, because the familiar female voice chuckled next to him.

“You’re such a dick,” it said.

He was walking.

Then he was inside a building.

Then he was inside a vehicle.

Then he was moving again, but this time it was more like floating.

No, riding.

Riding in a vehicle.

Clouds passed by above his head, outside an open car window. Bright, white clouds. When he was a kid, his mother (Charlie to her friends) used to tell him that if he stared long enough, the clouds would magically transform into whatever he was thinking at the time. When he got older, he realized it was just his imagination at work. But he still loved his mom anyway. She was a beautiful woman, kind and generous, and he never heard her say a bad word about anyone.

“You’re still alive?” a voice said.

There was a lyrical quality to the voice that he appreciated, as if it were reaching down from the clouds floating above him.

“God, how are you still alive?” the voice asked. “You must have lost at least two pints of blood out there. What are you, 200 pounds? You lose any more and you’re never going to wake up. Can you hear me? No, of course not. Just keep staring at those clouds.”

He wished the voice would shut up, because it was ruining what was, up to that point, a perfectly good staring-at-clouds moment. It had been so long since he’d allowed himself to indulge in such pointlessness that getting interrupted made him feel cheated. These eleven months had been one battle after another, and he was tired of fighting. So goddamn tired.

“Oh, shit,” the voice said. “You’re bleeding again!”

Oh, so that’s what that dripping sound was. I thought someone had left a faucet running.

He closed his eyes and the clouds disappeared. He might have also rolled off the seat and landed on the floor, hitting his head against the door, but that could have just been his imagination.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

The second time Will opened his eyes, it was to the rhythmic plop-plop-plop of rainwater. He was lying on the front passenger seat of the Ford F-150, reclined back as far as it would go. He was shirtless, and there was fresh gauze wrapped around his midsection. The throbbing pain felt like a sledgehammer pounding his brain in tune to the plop-plop-plop of the rain outside.

He groped along the side of the seat, found the lever, and pulled it. The seat lifted him up into a semi-sitting position. He stared out the bullet-riddled windshield and into a muggy, dark-gray world, sheets of rain falling over a familiar opening.

He was back in Fredo’s auto body shop in the city of Harvest, in one of its garage ports. For a moment, he was alarmed that it was nightfall. With some effort, he was able to lift his hand until he could see his watch: 5:11 p.m.

Why is it so dark?

“I can’t believe you’re still alive,” a voice said.

Will looked over at Zoe, sitting in the driver’s seat, watching him with curious eyes. Her white doctor’s coat, covered in dried blood, was thrown over the headrest, and he thought she looked odd in just a T-shirt and pants.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” she said.

“Am I?” His voice was labored and quiet. Was he whispering?

“You lost at least two liters of blood back there. Probably closer to three. But all it did was knock you out for half a day. What are you, the Terminator?”

He managed a grin. The truth was, he hurt. Every inch of him, and all he wanted to do was lie back down and go to sleep for a long, long time. But he didn’t, because it was too dark outside and his instincts kept him awake because of it, even if his watch told him it was only because of the rain.

“Do you always carry thread and needle around with you?” she asked.

“It seemed like the thing to do.”

“I tried to suture your wounds, but you were bleeding too much. I’ll have to do it later when you’re stronger. By the way, what happened to your leg?”

“I was in a helicopter crash.”

“What about your left arm?”

“Someone shot me.”

“Christ.”

“Yeah.” He sat up a little bit more. “How long has it been raining?”

“About thirty minutes.”

“We’re back at Fredo’s?”

“I didn’t know where else to go.” She looked conflicted. “And you were bleeding so badly, I wasn’t sure if you would survive anyway. But you did. Just barely.”

Will felt sticky, as if he were sitting in gum. He looked down at his seat, and even in the semidarkness saw that it was covered in blood. His blood. It stuck to his clothes, and his shirt, dark black with blood, was crumpled on the floor at his feet. It had been white when he put it on this morning.

“Do you have another shirt?” she asked.

“I did, but I gave it to Gaby last night.”

“That explains the bloody shirt I found outside.”

He nodded and laid his head back down. “You saved my life.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I’m a doctor. What the hell was I going to do, let you die out there?”

“There was a third guy…”

“He gave up and ran back to town after you took off.”

“He didn’t try to stop you?”

“I think he was confused. And scared.”

“Good for me, then.”

“Yeah, really good for you. There weren’t that many guys in hazmat suits back in town. Most of them were probably en route, bringing over more people from the other camps. If there had been just one more vehicle back there, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Must be my lucky day.”

“Yeah, lucky you.”

She picked up a water bottle and handed it to him. He drank greedily, devouring the whole thing in a couple of gulps.

“It’s rain water,” she said. “I’ll refill it later.” She took the bottle back and continued to watch him. “I can’t figure you out, Will.”

“What’s got you so confounded, doc? I’m not that deep.”

“The fact that you keep fighting, when everyone — or most everyone — has given up. I know you have the island, but instead of going back to it, what do you do? You run over to the camp. Then the town. Why?”

“Know thy enemy.”

“It’s more than that. You want to save people, don’t you?”

“You’re the first one to ever accuse me of that, doc.”

“I doubt that. Maybe you and I are more alike than I thought. We both can’t stand the idea of people who need help not getting it.”

Is that it? Maybe…

He said instead, “Decent working theory, I guess.”

“What you have to realize is that those people back there don’t want your help. They’re perfectly satisfied with where they are. To you that may sound unfathomable, but they’re not like you, Will. They’re not soldiers.” She looked out the windshield, into the pouring rain. “Not everyone can fight forever. Not everyone wants to.”

He watched the rain with her. Slowly, he began to enjoy the melodic plop-plop-plop against the garage roof, the almost calming effect of water cascading to the concrete driveway in front of them.

After a while, he said, “Thanks again, doc.”

“How’s the pain?”

“Like someone’s poking me in the eyeballs with a spear.”

She reached into the back for his pack, unzipped it, rummaged around, and then took out a bottle and read the label. “You don’t have much left. Looks like you might have given all the good stuff to Nate.”

“Not everything.” He pulled out the pill bottle from his cargo pants pocket and tossed it to her.

She read the label before giving him a concerned look. “How many of these have you taken?”

“Four, I think.”

“Oxycodone. How are you even still awake after four of these?”

“Persistence.”

She smirked. “Well, no more of this.” She shoved it into the pack and opened the pill bottle she had brought out earlier. “Hydrocodone. It’ll stave off the pain for a while and won’t knock you out completely. I assume that’s something you want?”

“Good call.”

She handed him two pills, then opened her door and climbed out. “I’ll go refill the bottle.”

Will popped the pills into his mouth and swallowed, then spent the time watching her sticking the open water bottle out into the rain while doing her best to keep from getting wet. She came back later, shaking the rainwater out of her hair, and handed him the bottle. He drank half of it, even though he wasn’t really thirsty.

“You carried me back to the barn by yourself?” he asked.

“Well, shouldered you, anyway. I don’t think I could have actually carried you. Frankly, I was shocked you were still on your feet after you closed your eyes. I’d never seen anything like that before. It was like your body just knew it had to keep moving, even if the rest of you shut down.”

“I told you I was special.”

“That, or you’re really, really stubborn.”

“That too.”

They exchanged a brief smile.

“Why are you still here?” he asked. “I put a gun to your head and threatened to kill you yesterday.”

She sighed. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m an idiot.”

He chuckled. “No, that’s not it. What’s the real reason?”

She looked out the front windshield at the falling rain. “Maybe I can help you.”

“To do what?”

“Fight the creatures. Or ghouls, as you call them.”

“I thought you said their deal was acceptable, that it was even preferable to how you were living before.”

“You don’t understand,” she said, looking back at him. “I don’t want to change anybody’s mind. The people at the camps. In the towns. They’ve decided, and I’m fine with that. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try to improve their lot anyway.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to be against the people in the towns to keep fighting the ghouls, Will. From what I’ve seen, you have no interest in harming those people. Am I right?”

“Of course not. Why would I want to hurt them?”

“Exactly. It’s just you versus the ghouls and the people in hazmat suits. What you call collaborators. And you’re only violent with them because you have no choice. Is that also right?”

He nodded. “I don’t want to hurt anyone unless I have to. I’ve seen the blood farms, the before-picture of when people like you were in those induced comas. I know what you’ve been through, doc, and maybe I wouldn’t have agreed to the deal myself, but I can understand why you and the others did.”

“So there’s no conflict,” she said, nodding. He wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince him or herself. “We fight the creatures, but not the people.”

“That sounds like a solid plan,” he said, and closed his eyes.

“Are you okay?” Zoe asked.

“I think I’m bleeding again. Can you do something about that?”

He heard her moving around. “Shit, Will, I was going to wait until you’re stronger to suture your wound, but I might have to do it sooner. Can you—”

“Do it,” he said.

“It’s going to hurt.”

“Just do it,” he grunted.

His last thoughts were of Gaby, and he wondered what she was doing back at the island right this moment. Probably walking on the beach with Nate. Or Benny. He wished her luck in choosing. God knew they all had to grab happiness wherever they could these days.

At least one of us made it back to the island…

CHAPTER 31 GABY

Gaby opened her eyes to silence and darkness. She climbed off the couch, her sudden movements waking Nate in the process. He had been asleep next to her, dozing from the medication, and she was surprised he was even alert enough to feel her moving.

“What’s going on?” he said, his voice groggy.

“I think I heard something,” she whispered back.

His voiced dropped to match hers. “What?”

“I don’t know. Stay here.”

She groped around in the darkness for her pack, unzipped it, and pulled out a glow stick. She pocketed it and grabbed the AR-15 leaning against the wall nearby and moved across the room toward the door. Her ears were up, listening to every sound, every heartbeat, every labored breath between her and Nate.

She crouched in front of the door, reached up, and twisted the deadbolt. With one hand, she slowly pulled open the door a fraction — just enough to see out — while making as little noise as possible. The night was so quiet that any little sound might as well be an announcement that they were inside the pawnshop.

“What do you see?” Nate whispered behind her.

She wasn’t sure what she saw, so she said nothing. The inside of the pawnshop was still wet, puddles of water pooling over the tiled floor, most of it concentrated near the front where Nate had broken the glass and bent the bars back to access the building.

It was pitch black outside, and the damn moon had chosen this night to go into hiding; she couldn’t make out anything, not even the parking lot beyond. She could just barely discern the counter in front and to her left, and the shelves to her right.

Other than that, it was like staring into the abyss.

Nate crouched next to her, his breath warm against the back of her neck. Thank God he was quiet. Benny would have been lumbering around like a giant in the dark.

“What do you see?” he whispered again.

“Nothing,” she whispered back.

He stared for a moment, then shook his head. “I can’t see anything. Less than anything.”

“Yeah…”

“I—” He stopped in mid-sentence.

“What is it?” she whispered.

He pointed toward the windows and slightly to the left.

Her heart skipped at the sight of a ghoul moving quietly from left to right, sliding across the front of the pawnshop with that unnatural, almost ballet-like grace they had about them. There was only one and it was small, its appearance more fragile than she was used to seeing. It peered inside the pawnshop, searching with beady eyes, upturned nostrils sniffing the air.

Can it smell us?

Gaby tightened her grip around the cold brass of the doorknob, preparing herself mentally to slam the door shut at a moment’s notice. Not yet, though, not yet. It hadn’t seen them, and moving too quickly now would be giving away their position.

We should have looked for a basement. Stupid. So stupid.

She watched the small, malformed ghoul moving across the front glass wall of the pawnshop. It was looking at something else now, something outside the store.

Keep going. Just keep going, you little shit.

Then it stopped at the broken section of the window.

No…

It lowered itself to the ground, toward the opening.

No!

“It’s going to come through,” Nate whispered.

She heard the sound of Nate sliding the Beretta out of his waistband.

“Nate,” she whispered.

“Yeah?”

“Take my Glock and the two spare magazines on my right hip.”

“Why?”

“They have silver ammo.”

“Right, silver bullets.”

He put his Beretta away and drew her Glock from its holster, then opened one of her pouches and pulled out the two spare magazines.

“Is this all we have?” he asked.

“More magazines in my pack, but they’re loaded with regular ammo.”

She remained still, watching through the small opening as the ghoul slowly slid under the window.

Dammit.

The good news was, there was still just the one. She could deal with that. Too bad she had never gotten around to arming herself with a silver knife, the way Will carried that cross-knife of his everywhere. She was going to have to make a lot of noise just to kill this one ghoul, which would risk bringing more—

She hadn’t even finished the thought when two — no, four—ten more ghouls had appeared out of the darkness and were swarming toward the pawnshop from the other side of the window.

Oh, God.

Then ten became twenty, and suddenly there were too many to count. She didn’t know where they had come from — nowhere and everywhere. Like moths to the flame, squirming, pushing, and fighting to enter the pawnshop at the same time. So many that they began clogging up the entrance like hundreds of black worms wriggling in the ground, their individual silhouettes impossible to make out against the blackness. She got queasy as glass shards sticking along the broken windows sliced into their flesh, drawing thick clumps of blood that dripped, dissolving in the puddle on the floor.

And still they pushed, wordlessly, soundlessly, anxiously—desperately—to get inside.

The first creature she saw — the painfully small one — was the first to make it through, pushed on ahead by the amorphous blob behind it. It slid against a puddle, almost out of control, but quickly gathered its wits about it and looked across the darkened room and hissed at her.

As the ghoul rose to its feet, Gaby pushed the door open wider and shot the creature in the chest.

Even before the creature fell, two — three—five—were already leaping over its collapsing form and bounding across the room, moving with such incredible speed that Gaby found herself staring, fascinated and awed by their ferocity.

“Gaby!” Nate shouted behind her.

Gaby stood up, switched the AR-15 to full-auto and squeezed the trigger.

Bullets speared flesh and chipped bone and kept going, the creatures’ soft, non-existent muscle doing nothing to stop the velocity of the silver rounds. The windows spiderwebbed, the pak-pak-pak sound of impact like the raindrops from earlier. What sounded like a bullet ricocheted off one of the metal bars and pierced a ghoul, even as more of them fell and flopped to the floor as if they were slipping and sliding.

For a brief instant, she almost wanted to laugh at the comical sight.

She dropped seven of them in the first burst, but they hadn’t all crumpled to the floor yet before another wave began squeezing their way through, cutting and slashing and eviscerating themselves against the broken glass.

“Gaby!” Nate shouted again. “Close the door!”

Gaby couldn’t really hear him, because she was too busy emptying the rest of the magazine into the jagged hole where the wet floor met the opening, where the ghouls were fighting — each other and the shards of glass — to get through. The sound of silver slapping into flesh, continuing, hitting more flesh, deflecting off bone, and digging into the parking lot beyond was like a melody — a death song filling the quiet, silent night.

It was almost beautiful.

Then the window disappeared, and there was just a wall of moving prune flesh — gaunt, bony faces and dark, unforgiving black eyes looking back at her.

“Nate!” she shouted. “The desk!”

Gaby stepped backward and slammed the door shut. She twisted the deadbolt into place, ejected the spent magazine and ran over to her pack, pulling out a fresh one and shoving it back into the rifle.

One down. One to go.

She pulled out the glow stick and cracked it, then tossed it on the floor in the middle of the room. The office lit up, just as the sound of falling glass rattled from the other side of the door, and she knew they were breaking through, no longer willing to wait in line. She could already hear the cacophony of bare feet slapping against tiled floor, splashing water that had settled across the store.

Gaby slung her rifle and reached for the other side of the desk. Nate, on his own, had managed to push the big, heavy oak furniture a good five feet. Gaby grabbed the other end and, grunting with the effort, lifted it up. Nate did the same on his end, using both hands, though his right was doing most of the lifting. She didn’t want to imagine the kind of pain he was feeling at the moment. She couldn’t afford to care. Not now, not with the creatures bearing down on them.

They moved to the door one desperate inch at a time, the desk between them. She could feel sweat pouring down her temple, cheeks, and dripping off her chin. Nate’s face was a twisted mask of pain, and he grunted with every successful inch.

They were almost at the door when the first ghoul smashed into it on the other side. The entire frame trembled under the impact.

She moved faster, and Nate, sensing her urgency, fought to keep up.

“How we doing this?” he grunted.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

“Angle it, on its side, tabletop against the door!” she shouted back.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

The attack on the door had increased in intensity and speed with every passing second. The doorknob quivered and the wood quaked and the frame splintered with each impact.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

At last they were at the door, and Gaby dropped her end and rushed over to Nate’s side. They exchanged a brief nod, and with a heavy, simultaneous painful grunt, upended the desk until the bulky object was standing on its side.

“Push!” Gaby shouted, and put her shoulder against the underside of the desk as Nate did the same next to her.

She didn’t stop pushing until the desk’s tabletop slid perfectly flat against the door. It almost instantly trembled as soon as the two pieces of wood touched.

Thoom-thoom-thoom! Thoom-thoom-thoom!

Gaby backpedaled, taking each step, each breath, almost in tune with the relentless, unceasing pounding. Nate mirrored her actions, though she barely noticed him until his labored, ragged breathing seeped into her flaring senses.

“Do you think it’ll hold?” Nate asked between gasps.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

“No,” she said quickly.

“Damn.” He pulled out the Glock from his waistband, his right pocket bulging with the two spare magazines. The Beretta was stuffed behind his back. “How did they know we were in here?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“We should have gone looking for a basement.”

“Yeah.”

A loud crash rang out, and she knew the door had just come free from its frame on the other side of the desk. Splinters flickered into the room, along with torn fragments of the wall that shot at her like projectiles. She twisted her body instinctively and swatted the air, batting away a few loosened chunks.

“We’re fucked,” Nate said.

“Not yet.” She glanced behind her at the back door.

Nate followed her gaze. “Isn’t it more dangerous out there?”

“There are two dumpsters in the back…”

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

“So we’re going dumpster diving after this?” He grinned, his face comical in the green fluorescent glow. “Awesome. Although, I always pictured my first date with you being a little cleaner.”

“This isn’t the time—”

Another massive Thoom! and the desk slid back a few inches, squealing loudly as its edges dug into the tiles. Peeking out above the shorter desk, she could see the top portion of the door, opening slightly, though how the door managed to stay on its hinges was baffling since there didn’t seem to be much of a frame left.

They took another involuntary step back, then another one. She lifted her rifle, and Nate raised the Glock.

The first creature poked its head out of the right side of the desk, trying to squeeze its way through. Its slim, emaciated body moved like a skeleton draped with black flesh instead of something that was actually alive.

She shot it in the head and the creature flopped to the floor.

Nate stared at the dead (again) creature, almost as if he couldn’t believe it. “Silver bullets. Holy shit.”

“Aim for the biggest part of their body,” she said. “It doesn’t matter where you hit it, as long as you hit it with silver.”

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

Two more creatures emerged out of the left side of the door. Gaby shot the one that was almost through, while Nate put the other one out of its misery. The creatures’ bodies smacked against the floor, where they lay still — before they were jerked unceremoniously back through the door to make room for the next wave.

Another loud crash, and the desk moved backward another two inches.

Gaby slung her rifle and rushed forward, throwing her shoulder into the desk. Then Nate was there doing the same thing and they moved the desk an inch at a time back against the door.

A ghoul struggled to squeeze through the slight opening next to her, so close Gaby could smell the rancid odor seeping from its pores. She shot the creature’s arm at point-blank range, rendering flesh and snapping bone as if it were powder. The arm flew off at the elbow joint and streaked across the room.

The relentless hammering continued on the other side of the door, over and over again, pounding into every inch, top to bottom, side to side, an endless sea of blows, never ending, never pausing for even a second to let her breathe.

Thoom-thoom-thoom! Thoom-thoom-thoom!

THOOM-THOOM-THOOM!

“Push!” she grunted.

“What do you think I’m doing?” Nate grunted back.

Nate gave her a look, his face almost ethereal in the green fluorescent of the glow stick. And he did push, legs struggling desperately under him, sheets of sweat breaking out across his face. She prayed to God his stitches didn’t snap free at that very moment.

They managed to push the desk another inch back against the door, when a loud, massive hit shook both of them to their core. She didn’t know they were even capable of that kind of power, and her mind was still reeling, trying to justify it, even as she and Nate both took a stunned step back.

By the time they gathered themselves and threw their bodies back against the desk one more time, the door had reopened another two inches and one of the ghouls had managed to squeeze through the small sliver.

It leaped inside, moving so fast she only saw a blur before she heard the click-clacking of bones against the tiled floor. Its skin, stretched tight over deformed bones, made for an odd, grayish tint that looked as if it were moving slower than it really was. But her eyes were lying to her because she knew it was fast, darting from the door to the side wall.

Gaby stepped away from the door, tracking the creature with her rifle. It raced to the back of the room, toward the couch, and bounded over it. It ran with purpose, moving around the back instead of attacking head-on, each second bringing it closer to her.

“Dead, not stupid,” Will always said.

She fired — and missed!

The damn thing was actually zig-zagging across the room in order to make her aim more difficult.

So she feigned a shot, made as if to shoot by jerking the gun toward it — and got it to zig instead of zag (“Don’t shoot at where the target is, shoot at where it’s going,” was a mantra Danny had drilled into her head). She squeezed off a second shot and clipped it in the neck. Just barely. It was enough, and the ghoul stumbled and went down as if it had run into a wall.

Thoom-thoom-thoom!

THOOM-THOOM-THOOM!

Gaby spun around just as the desk and door and chunks of the wall exploded behind her. She felt rather than saw Nate stumbling back, disoriented, trying to shake off the blow, then losing his balance and crashing to the floor with a loud expelling of breath and pain.

The desk had collapsed to the floor, returning to the position originally intended for it — on its legs. The door, or what was left of it, hung from a single hinge, the frame forced free from the wall, leaving behind little more than a jagged rectangle.

She looked past all of that at the nebulous blackness moving and shifting and surging through the opening. She didn’t even have time to count how many were in the pawnshop beyond the door, or how many were clamoring over the backs of the ones in front of them, trying to be the first into the room, the first to take what they wanted from her, from Nate.

The first to taste their blood.

She flicked the fire selector on the AR-15 to full-auto and fired, the magazine emptying at an incredulous rate, the weapon recoiling against her over and over and over again. She swung it from left to right, then right to left.

They stumbled and fell and climbed over each other. Every bullet she fired pierced soft flesh and glanced off bones to kill one, two, sometimes three more behind them. She was getting good value for her money, every bullet taking down multiple ghouls, but it wasn’t enough.

It wasn’t nearly enough.

For every one that staggered to the floor and didn’t move again, two more—five more — took its place.

There were too many. There were simply too many.

And they kept coming.

And coming…

“Gaby!” Nate shouted behind her. (When had he gotten behind her?)

Gaby heard his voice only because she had stopped firing; the magazine was empty. She backed up, hitting the release switch to pull out and slam in her final magazine before looking back.

Nate was at the door, one hand on the deadbolt, the other on the lever. She could see blood soaking through the fabric of his shirt over his left shoulder, the red color spreading along his left arm. He looked deathly ill, but was somehow still standing.

“We have to go!” he shouted.

She nodded, turning around just as two ghouls came within inches of scratching her face. She didn’t have time to aim and fired from the hip instinctively, slicing them in a short burst. They fell, the bullets that killed them continuing on, knocking three more ghouls off the desk seconds after they had scrambled on top of it.

Clumps of flesh, smelling like garbage and decaying meat, along with viscous liquids made of things she’d rather not think about, splattered her shirt and neck and cheeks, and she could have sworn some got in her hair, too.

“Do it!” she shouted. “Do it now!”

She kept backing up, firing into the thick, shapeless mass of quivering flesh flooding through the door over and around the fallen desk. It didn’t matter where she fired. One section of the room was the same as the other. It looked as if the bullets were punching into an ocean. An endless sea, as deep as the universe, moving forward to take her into its final embrace.

She felt the large gush of cool wind behind her, and knew Nate had thrown open the back door. She waited to hear his voice, calling to her to come already, that there wasn’t any time left to make their escape.

The dumpsters. If they could get to the dumpsters…

But there were no sounds from behind her, no Nate screaming, urging her backward. She wondered if he was dead, if opening the back door had only allowed more creatures waiting outside to come in.

She had to turn, had to look back, but she couldn’t. There were too many in front of her, that if she took her eyes off them for even a second, it would all be over. They would make up the distance and that would be it. That would be the end.

“Nate!” she shouted.

There was no response.

She kept firing, counting the number of bullets. Too many, too fast, too—

Empty.

She looked over her shoulder—

Nate was on the floor, his body in a heap.

And something else — a second figure — was rushing toward her. Dark, tall, and wearing a white hazmat suit.

As her mind tried to process what she was seeing, the stock of a rifle smashed into the side of her neck. Gaby gagged, more from the shock than pain, and dropped her rifle, falling to her knees. Groping at her neck, she struggled to breathe.

She looked toward Nate, at the open back door, as a second hazmat-suited figure darted inside, leaping over Nate’s prone body. The man’s gas mask made for a fiendish sight in the green of the glow stick, as if he were an alien invader coming to take her. It moved toward her with surprising speed, and before she could stand up and fight, it grabbed her and held (embraced?) her.

Then darkness, as the world was swallowed by black-skinned creatures blotting out everything around her. Glimpses of blurring flesh and bottomless pits moved toward her, then past her.

The arm around her was so tight it threatened to choke the life out of her. She wanted to fight, but barely had any strength to keep her eyes open. And the pain from her neck was impossible to ignore. She gagged, trying to remember how to breathe again. But it was difficult. It was so difficult…

Her vision started to fail her and everything became heavy. Slowly, slowly, she realized trying to breathe was too challenging, and the last thing she remembered was the sound of screaming…and she knew it wasn’t coming from her.

CHAPTER 32 WILL

He dreamt of Lara. Of white sandy beaches. A perfect breeze and the soft glow of blonde hair in the sun. Soft skin under his fingers, and kissable lips.

Lara…

“You know how to make a girl jealous,” a voice said.

He opened his eyes slowly, painfully. The spiderwebbed front windshield of the Ford F-150 was the first thing that came into view. Behind that, sunlight filtered in through holes along the steel garage door and from crevices around it.

“What time is it?” His voice sounded more like a guttural groan. How long had he been asleep?

“Morning,” Zoe said.

“What time?”

“You have a watch. Look at it.”

“I can’t feel my arms.”

Zoe leaned over, lifted his right hand, and showed him the face of his watch: 9:15 a.m.

“There,” she said. “Happy?”

“I slept through the night?”

She smiled down at him. “Yes and no.”

A bottle of water magically appeared in her hand. She tipped the opening against his lips and he opened his mouth and drank. Rain water. It still tasted better than no water, and his throat was parched.

“You slept through the last two nights,” she said.

“Two nights?”

“You almost died, Will. Again.” She frowned at him. “Honestly, I don’t know how you’re still alive right now. You’re basically seventy percent flesh and blood and thirty percent sutures. You almost bled out the last time you were conscious.”

“Good thing I’m stubborn.”

“No kidding.”

He struggled to sit up. She put her hand on his chest and pushed him back down. She must have been stronger than she looked, because he couldn’t move at all against her palm. That, or he was half dead and had little strength to resist.

“Slowly,” Zoe said. “Okay? Slowly.”

He laid back down and calmed his breathing. Better.

“The good news is, your sutures are holding and you’re not bleeding anymore,” she said.

“The bad news?”

“I tried washing your shirt in the rain, but I’m not very good at laundry.”

She held up his shirt. There were still blood stains on it, and it smelled like rain. He smiled and took it, put it on the dashboard for later. She offered him the bottle again, and he drank some more.

“Lara,” she said.

“What about her?”

“You kept saying her name in your sleep.”

“I guess I was dreaming about her.”

“I figured,” she smiled. “Hungry? I’ve been filling you up with nothing but water for the last two and a half days.”

“There’s food in my pack…”

“There was food in your pack. I ate it.” She picked up a plastic Phillips 66 bag from her floor. “But the gas station next door had some food on the shelves. Lots of stale chips, Pringles, and plenty of beef jerky and other nonperishables.”

She took out a can of Dole fruit and pulled the tab free. He smelled syrup-drenched artificial flavoring and immediately thought of Gaby.

At least one of us made it back home…

“You need to be careful about going outside the garage by yourself,” he said.

She gave him a wry look. “Give me a break. I’ve been doing it for the last two days while you were sleeping on your ass in here. I know you’re the big bad Army Ranger, but I do have some survival instincts of my own, you know. Besides—” she picked up something from the dashboard — his cross-knife “—I had this. You religious or something?”

“No.”

“So what’s with the cross?”

“You see a cross, I see a knife.”

“So, cross-knife?”

“Something like that.”

She handed it back to him, and Will slipped it into its sheath along his left hip.

“Did you have to use it?” he asked.

“No.”

“Anyone looking for us while I was out?”

“I don’t know if they were looking for us specifically, but while I was outside I saw a lot of movement along the highway the last few days. And a couple of vehicles came close enough a couple of times that I could hear them from inside the garage.” She pulled open a stick of Jack Link’s beef jerky and took a bite. Teriyaki-flavored beef drifted from her seat to his. “This thing isn’t half bad. I can see why you like it.”

He sporked a chunk of pineapple into his mouth, tried to chew it a little bit before swallowing.

“Can I ask you a question?” she said after a while.

“I’m not sure I could stop you if I wanted to, so go ahead.”

“Would you have really shot me back there at the camp, if the others had opened fire on us?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“Because if they opened fire, chances are one of them would have shot you by accident first.”

She glared at him. “God, you’re such a dick.”

He wanted to laugh, but the most he could manage was a soft chuckle.

She went back to eating the jerky while he fished out the final piece of pineapple, then tilted the can over his lips and drank down the sugary liquid.

When Will lowered the can, he saw that the garage had gotten noticeably darker. He checked his watch just to make sure his internal clock wasn’t out of whack. No, it was still just 12:11 p.m.

“It’s getting darker,” he said. He glanced up at the roof. “Rain.”

The first drop hit Fredo’s rooftop on cue, quickly followed by sheets of rain pouring down across the holes and crevices along the closed garage doors.

“Good thing I went shopping earlier today,” Zoe said.

The rain made him feel better, and allowed him to relax and concentrate on not dying. The daylight kept the ghouls away, and rain kept the collaborators hunkered down. He wasn’t sure if they still had pursuers, but he always liked to keep his options open.

He got some of his strength back, enough that he could climb out of the truck on his own and walk around in the tight confines of the garage while barefoot. (He didn’t recall when Zoe had taken off his boots.) Every muscle ached and joints popped with every move, but he kept shuffling anyway until he got the hang of it again.

Zoe watched him carefully, and he wasn’t entirely sure if it was admiration he saw in her eyes or pity. Probably a combination of both. Eventually, he got enough strength back to pull his shirt on.

By three in the afternoon, the rain was still pounding on Fredo’s, and water had seeped into the garage under the closed doors. He slipped his socks and boots back on and continued his movements. He felt better with every step, every hour on his feet. His strength wasn’t there yet, and it would be a while before he was his old self. The good news was that he barely felt the sutured wound along his thigh, and the one in his side was manageable as long as he didn’t think about it too much.

He ate his share of the beef jerky and canned food Zoe had scavenged from the Phillips 66 next door. Whenever they ran out of water — which was often — they refilled it outside in the rain, taking turns. Zoe regulated his medication, not that there was enough variety to choose from. The pain was unavoidable, but he soldiered through it and thought of something else.

The island. Lara. Danny’s bad jokes. Sarah’s cooking.

He was at least heartened that Gaby and Nate had probably made it back to the island by now. He had no way of knowing for sure, but Gaby was resourceful, and even injured, Nate had proven himself to be a good companion for her.

Teenage love in the apocalypse lives after all.

When he opened his eyes again later that night, it was pitch dark inside the truck, and he couldn’t hear the sound of rain anymore, only the soft and steady drip-drip-drip of leftover water falling off the sides of the building.

Nightfall.

He could see the whites of Zoe’s eyes. Her knees were pulled up to her chest, hands over her legs. She was staring at him as he stirred awake.

“They’re outside,” she whispered. Her lips trembled, making it sound as if she were stuttering.

He looked down at his watch, the hands glowing bright green in the darkness: 10:39 p.m.

Will twisted slightly in his seat, grimacing with the pain (Ignore it), and reached into the back for his M4A1 rifle. There, the cold but comfortable feel of well-worn metal. He pulled it forward by the barrel and into his lap. He ran his hands over the carbine, checking to make sure everything was where it should be.

Zoe was looking at the closed garage door in front of them now. Moonlight filtered in through the tiny crevices at the bottom and along the sides, as if the door were glowing in the dark. Figures — thin, gaunt shapes — darted across the other side, never staying at one spot for very long, and the sound of splashing puddles that had accumulated in the parking lot after the day’s rain.

How many? More than two. Possibly five. Likely more than that.

His gun belt was on the floor. He reached down and tugged the Glock gently out of its holster and checked to make sure he had a full magazine inside. He slipped it back into the holster, the slide of the Glock’s plastic polymer against leather like fingernails on a chalkboard. He carefully wrapped the gun belt around his waist and pulled it tight, ignoring the brief flash of pain. He was glad he had swallowed extra painkillers when Zoe wasn’t looking.

His pack rested between the two front seats; he picked it up and calmly, silently searched for the spare magazines inside. He had two spares for the M4A1 and two for the Glocks. All silver ammo. He had given the rest to Gaby.

“What are we going to do?” Zoe whispered, her voice impossibly strained.

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

Her eyes trembled and widened, over and over again.

“We’ll be fine,” he whispered.

There was a loud bang! as one of the ghouls crashed into the steel garage door. The whole building seemed to shake for an instant, before another one of the creatures smashed into the same door just as it was settling.

Zoe almost screamed, but somehow managed to stop herself in time.

“Did you latch the garage doors?” he asked.

Will had dispensed with the whispering now. The ghouls clearly knew they were inside, and he could see the number of figures increasing through the slits. There were so many that they completely overwhelmed the slivers of moonlight that were once visible.

Twenty. Maybe thirty…

Zoe managed to nod back at him, her voice trembling when she answered. “I couldn’t find the keys to lock them in place.”

“It’s okay, neither could I.”

He had looked everywhere the first time they had spent the night at Fredo’s, but the keys were nowhere to be found. The garage doors were simply latched, but not locked. It was one of the reasons why Will didn’t like staying in a place more than once. Betting on the ghouls missing you two times in a row was asking for trouble. Betting on three days in a row was begging for it.

Dead, not stupid.

“We’re going to die, aren’t we?” Zoe said suddenly.

“No.”

She was trying to read his face. Will smiled back at her. He had mastered hiding his emotions years ago. Fear, happiness — things that could be tempered with the right combination of resolve and denial.

He was very aware that there was a way out of this. The hazmat suit. It was still crumpled on the floor behind his seat, where he had tossed it days ago after they escaped the camp. He could put it on and probably survive tonight. Probably. He wasn’t entirely confident that was even true. Were the ghouls ordered not to attack any hazmat suits? Or just people wearing the uniforms at certain locations?

Too many questions, too many possibilities.

Not that it mattered. There was Zoe to think about. She had saved his life, even when she didn’t have to. He couldn’t pay that back now by grabbing the suit and leaving her to fend for herself. Besides, there was still a way out of this.

“We’ll be fine,” he said. “I just need you to stick with me, okay?”

“I don’t want to die, Will.”

“You won’t.”

Zoe jumped at the sound of footsteps moving across the roof above them. The truck’s windows were open, as they had been for the last three days. He could hear the steady, unmistakable patter of soft, bare feet treading over wet, loose gravel.

Definitely more than one. Probably a dozen…

“Oh, God,” Zoe whispered. “What are they doing up there?”

They’re probing, looking for a weak spot.

He said instead, “I need to get behind the steering wheel, Zoe, and you need to get in the back.”

“Why?”

“Just in case.”

He could tell she wanted to ask, “Just in case of what?”, but she didn’t. Maybe she already knew, or maybe she didn’t want to know.

He grabbed her hand when he saw her reaching for the door handle. “No, just climb into the back.”

She untangled her long limbs, then slowly (and so, so cautiously) climbed into the backseat. Will slipped over and settled in behind the steering wheel. He laid the M4A1 across the front passenger seat, the stock facing him for an easy grab. He made sure he knew where the power switches for the windows were — right next to his left arm, along the driver’s side door. That was important, since both front windows were open. He wondered how long it would take them to close. Five seconds? Maybe.

Zoe had left the Ford’s key in the ignition. He could hear her letting out short, labored breaths behind him, like machine guns. He didn’t blame her. The sound of ghouls moving above them was disconcerting. He had been through it countless times, and it still got to him.

“Will?” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

“Yeah?”

“Was I wrong? For doing what I did? At the camps, with all those pregnant women?”

The question surprised him, especially since she had defended herself so well. But there were very real doubts in her voice now. Doubt, and very real regret.

“No,” he said. “You did what you had to do. No one can blame you.”

“Do you?”

“No. I don’t blame you, Zoe.”

“Thank you.”

He nodded, and slowly tuned out the noises from above. That was a distraction. He could almost sense them trying to lull him, like sirens grabbing at his attention.

Instead, he focused on the garage door directly in front of him. That was where the danger would come from. It would take too much effort to crash through the roof, but the doors, held down by a simple latch that could be opened from both sides, was the real problem. All it would take was for one ghoul to realize that…

Then he saw the door moving slightly — ever so slightly — and Will put his hand over the key. Behind him, he heard a soft click, and grinned at the image of Zoe putting on her seatbelt.

Buckle up, here they come.

Before he had even finished his thought, they threw the garage door open — first one, then the other — with such a sudden explosion of sound and fury that he actually jumped. His senses, already overloaded, went into overdrive when he glimpsed darkness beyond and the ghouls packed into the parking lot.

Then every inch of him erupted into action.

He flicked the key in the ignition and heard the F-150 roar to life about the same time the first ghoul leaped through the door, which was still in the process of sliding open, and landed on the hood, scrambling on all fours up to the damaged window. Will ignored its gaunt face and slobbering mouth — caverns of twisted and brown and yellow teeth — and slammed his fingers down on the power window switches. His right hand was already moving, falling down on the gear shift and pulling it into drive.

The ghoul was perched directly in front of him, glaring through the windshield with intense dark eyes, as if it could will itself through the bullet holes. Will slammed down on the gas pedal just as two — three—four more of the creatures flung themselves through the air and landed on the hood with loud thumps.

More plopped against the windshield and careened off as the F-150 powered forward and burst out of the garage, all four tires spinning desperately under its massive bulk.

The headlights had popped on automatically as soon as he turned the key, and Will saw a sea of ghouls crowding around the parking lot. They seemed to fly at him, landing and bouncing off the hood and windshield and sides of the vehicle like baseballs, each impact denting and cratering but doing nothing to halt the momentum of the almost 5,000-pound vehicle.

He heard the loud crunch of bodies and bones and skulls under the truck’s large twenty-nine inch tires, most of it lost in the roar of a powerful engine designed to tow over 11,000 pounds. Against that kind of brute force, creatures that were essentially bags of skin and bones didn’t stand a chance.

By now both windows were fully closed, though that didn’t stop the ghouls from endlessly smashing into them with their fists — and skulls — anyway. It was a hail Mary of sharp, bony bodies, jackhammering fists, and flailing legs coming from everywhere even as the truck battered its way down Fredo’s driveway and into the streets, splashing puddles as it went. The truck’s magnificently bright headlights flashed across scowling faces and shrunken bodies.

There had to be hundreds. Thousands. The streets were lined with them. Wall upon wall of shriveled figures, so many that eventually even the truck began to slow down under the onslaught, the number of crushed ghouls clogging up the tires and undercarriage.

“There’s too many!” Zoe shouted from the backseat.

Gee, thanks for the fine observation, Zoe.

He jerked the steering wheel and took the F-150 off the streets and into the grass. Instantly, he felt the difference in how the vehicle handled, minus the bodies trying to cling to it from every inch of the roof, hood, and sides. He was pretty sure a number of the creatures had leaped into the truck bed and were now clinging on for dear life, but he didn’t have time to look in the rearview mirror to make sure.

Now that he had abandoned the strip mall, he was moving through uncharted territory. Literally. The ground before and around and under him was constantly shifting, from smooth asphalt to concrete to grass and back again. Every bump and hop and sudden dip threatened to send them careening to their deaths. The truck was rising and falling more than it was moving on solid ground. It took all of his concentration not to broadside parked vehicles or take a tree head-on.

And through it all, the cascading sounds of bodies bouncing off the hood and grill and back bumper. The squeal of flesh trying to grapple onto the smooth sides of the truck to no avail. The constant glimpses of marble eyes, like small rain drops of tar, pouring at him from left and right and front and back, and at one point, he swore they were falling out of the sky, too.

We’re going to die. Soon, the truck will run out of gas, and we’re going to die.

Then, like a tunnel opening up in an ocean of nothingness, he saw it in the distance. It was long and lean and looked tiny, but that was only because it was still too far away to see in any detail. It was bright, blinding whiteness in a dark universe. He remembered seeing it days ago when he first drove through Harvest. It was a kilometer away, maybe more.

Doable.

He stepped on the gas and the truck poured it on, crunching ghouls and turning skulls and bones to dust and pulverizing skin into paper. Would that even kill them? He wasn’t so sure. He had seen ghouls moving with half their heads literally caved in, seen severed hands still acting like they had minds. Compared to those things, getting caught under a truck’s tires was probably child’s play.

Behind him, Zoe was screaming. He wasn’t entirely sure why she had suddenly let loose. Was it the fear? The sight of the ghouls flinging themselves at them with wild abandon? He couldn’t really blame her; if he were seeing it all for the first time, he might have lost it, too.

He tuned her out instead and concentrated on the objective in front of him. Literally. It was getting closer, becoming more and more real as the truck tore across the open land. He was leaving the ghouls behind, but he had no illusions that this small victory was going to last. He could outrun them, but only for a little while.

There were too many; they were simply everywhere, coming out of every inch of darkness around him. And they weren’t going to give up. Not as long as he was out here in the wide open with them.

He slammed his foot down on the accelerator and willed the truck to go faster. In the back, Zoe was screaming her head off.

Plan Z, Danny.

You would have loved this one, buddy…

CHAPTER 33 LARA

Will was dead. Gaby, too.

There were no other explanations as to why neither one of them had contacted Song Island since she’d last heard from Gaby. If he was still alive and capable, Will would have attempted to contact her by now.

Unless he’s dead…

Whatever optimism she had managed to cling to vanished when Gaby missed her check-in yesterday. Even Benny, who had been hobbling around the island beaming with anticipation of Gaby’s return, had begun to realize something had gone very, very wrong.

Danny, too, took the silence badly. “That fucking rain. I should have told her to push on through.”

She wanted to tell him not to blame himself, but it was a moot point. Like Will, Danny took responsibility for Gaby. The two of them had molded her into a soldier in their image, and in so many ways, became brother figures to her.

It’s not your fault, Danny, it’s my fault. I should never have let them go.

If I hadn’t insisted on the medical supplies, if I didn’t have so much faith in Will, if I had argued harder against taking Gaby…

…if…if…

It took Stan, one of the people who had arrived with Benny, to get her mind back to the work of the island. For a while, anyway.

She stood outside the main generator building at the Power Station, listening to Stan, wishing she were somewhere else, but grateful to be there at the same time.

This is Will’s job, she thought, listening to Stan as he explained how Song Island’s generator worked. Stan was an electrician and had spent the last few days looking at the island’s energy set-up, jotting down notes, diagrams, and spending more time at the Power Station than he did at the hotel.

“It’s an amazing piece of machinery,” Stan was saying. “The energy grid for the entire island is designed for maximum efficiency. Even with half of the system unaccounted for, I don’t see why we couldn’t crank up the AC in the summers and heating in the winters.”

Stan went on, but Lara had already stopped listening.

This is your job, Will. You should be here right now. You should be in charge. Not me. I’m not ready for this. I was never ready for this.

After a while, Stan seemed to realize that she wasn’t listening. He stopped talking and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

“They’ll show up,” Stan said. “They looked pretty capable. Give them more time, and they’ll show up.”

She nodded and tried to smile back at him, but she knew it came out badly. “Can you handle this place by yourself?”

“I don’t see why not. As long as the power grid doesn’t suffer some kind of catastrophic damage, this thing could conceivably keep running for years with just some basic maintenance.”

“Do you need anything? Supplies?”

“Plenty,” Stan said.

“Make a list, and we’ll try to fill it when we do supply runs later in the week.”

“I’ll get on it.”

She left him, and was glad when she made it back to the pathway and her teeth stopped chattering.

For a place that was so vital to the health of Song Island, the Power Station was her least favorite building. Not only because of the intense vibrations emanating from the generator, but because having to walk anywhere close to the small, walled off shack next door made her squeamish, even now, months after Danny and Will had collapsed the tunnel entrance along the shore. She always imagined she could feel them in there, back again after Will had cleared them out a few days ago…

Will, goddamn you.

She was on her way back to the hotel when her radio squawked.

It was Danny: “Lara, got a minute?”

She unclipped the radio. “What is it, Danny?”

“Roy has something to show you.”

She took a breath. She didn’t want to talk to Danny right now, much less Roy. She had barely managed to summon enough energy to talk to Stan, and the only reason she had even done that was to get away from the hotel, from the others. She needed the time alone that the long walk supplied, and she wasn’t quite ready to give it up yet.

She keyed the radio. “Danny, can it wait?”

“Lara,” Danny said, and there was something in his voice — an insistence — that she hadn’t heard before. “You’ll want to see this.”

“I’ll be there soon.”

“What is it?” Lara asked.

“It’s a laptop,” Roy said.

“I can see that, Roy. But why am I looking at it?”

They were on the third floor of the Tower, with nightfall spreading across the lake outside the windows. She spent the entire time trying to ignore the darkness, and the image of Will and Gaby out there, trying to survive another night.

If they’re even still alive…

Roy was sitting at the table in front of a laptop. There were two ham radios on the tabletop now, one on each side of the computer. The radio she was familiar with, that was still dialed into their designated emergency frequency and waiting to hear from Will and Gaby, was in one piece, while the one Benny had brought back with him looked gutted. Its cover was open, and there were multicolored wires connecting it to the laptop, which was also open at the back. Clearly, Roy had been doing more than just tinkering with the devices.

Danny leaned next to one of the windows, eating fried fish on a ceramic plate. “I told Roy Rogers here to go crazy with the spare radio, and he goes and does that.”

“What is ‘that’?” she asked.

“He wants to spread the word about the ghouls. Their weaknesses, their bad skin condition, and that ghastly smell that’s like getting tossed into a year-old dumpster.”

“Danny filled me in about the computer program that brought us here,” Roy said. He indicated what looked like a series of random numbers running inside an open window on the laptop’s screen. “I couldn’t duplicate exactly what the people who sent the FEMA broadcast had, but I think I got the gist of it. I’ve connected the two devices so we can now control the ham radio’s operations through the laptop. And, I’ve added some improvements.”

“What kind of improvements?” she asked.

“Instead of broadcasting on one frequency, it’ll broadcast across all of them, across all the bands, one after another. This way, we’ll be able to send the same recorded message over and over, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, but not be limited to just one frequency.”

“And it’s all automated?”

“As long as the laptop’s running and the Tower’s still standing, yeah.”

“Jinx,” Danny said.

“Oops, sorry,” Roy said. “You know what I mean.”

“What do you think?” she asked Danny.

Danny shrugged. “It’s not a bad idea and we don’t really have anything to lose. The broadcast doesn’t take that much power, and we still have the other radio for everything else. We know a lot about these buggers, maybe more than most people out there. Seems like the nice thing to do, don’t you think?”

She nodded, then looked back at Roy. “What do you need to set everything up?”

“Everything’s already set up,” Roy said. “I just need a message to send out there.” He picked up the radio’s microphone and held it out to her. “Fire away.”

She stared at him, then at Danny. “Me?”

“You’re the boss,” Danny said.

“Danny…”

“Carly’s not going to do it. She hates the sound of her own voice. And Sarah’s not going to do it, not after…well, you know.”

“What about Bonnie? She used to be a model.”

“We asked her,” Roy said. “She says models are seen, not heard.”

“We talked, and we all agreed you should do it,” Danny said.

“You ‘talked’?” she said. “When did that happen?”

“It’s a secret. We do that, you know, talk behind your back. Quite often, actually.”

“Why does it have to be a woman, anyway?”

“Tokyo Rose, Axis Sally, Hanoi Hannah…”

“Really, Danny?”

“Point is, it’s gotta be a woman. Makes people feel all warm and fuzzy.”

She sighed. “What should I say?”

“It should be short. The facts, but nothing about us or our location. I like Roy Rogers here and all, but we don’t need people showing up every day. It’ll get crowded real fast.”

She nodded. “I guess I’ll sleep on it.”

After Roy left to go eat, Lara stayed behind in the Tower with Danny. They stood next to each other, ignoring — but intimately aware of — the darkness covering the island and the lake outside the windows.

Neither one said anything for a while. She imagined he was thinking the same things she had been turning over in her head for the last few days.

About Will, about Gaby…

“I need to know,” she said after a while.

He nodded. “It’s a good thing I know where to start looking.”

“The pawnshop.”

“She gave us the address. Too bad we don’t have GPS, but we’ll make do. I hear they invented maps and such that work just as well.”

“It’ll be dangerous, Danny.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Will would hate me for asking you to do this. He always says either him or you should be here on the island at all times.”

“Willie boy has been known to make sense every now and then.”

“And you’ll have to leave Carly…”

“I’ll talk to her tonight and leave at sunup.”

“She’ll hate me.”

“Probably.”

Lara sighed. Then, “Who can you take with you? Blaine’s still hurt, even though he pretends he’s not.”

“Maddie, maybe. Or Roy.”

“Roy?”

“He’s a lousy shot, but all I need is a warm body to distract the other guys.”

She smiled. “You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t I?”

“No.”

“Maybe not.”

They stood in silence again.

“If they’re out there, I’ll bring them home,” Danny said after a while.

“I know you will,” she said.

“Okay?” she asked.

“Um, not yet,” Benny said. “Give me a sec.”

She waited patiently as Benny moved his finger around the laptop’s touchpad, directing the pointer onscreen. He clicked a couple of times, but the program she had seen running when Roy was working the same laptop last night didn’t show up.

Morning sunlight flooded in through the windows along the Tower’s third floor. She had barely slept last night, her mind filled with thoughts of Will and Gaby, and now Danny’s leaving. Her eyes had looked red in the bathroom mirror, as if she had been crying all night, though she didn’t remember doing it. Maybe she had just blocked it out.

“Benny?” she said.

“I almost got it.”

“Maybe I should come back later…”

“Roy showed me how this thing works. I don’t know why it’s not working now—” Finally, the familiar-looking program appeared on the screen. “There.”

She gave him a half-hearted “good job” smile.

Benny picked up the ham radio mic and handed it to her. “You can start whenever you want, and I’ll clean up the audio later. Do however many takes as you need.”

She nodded. She was always planning on one take. It was a simple message and relatively short. She had already run it by Carly and Danny, and they had given her the thumbs up. Even so, she wished Will were here. He would know if she had gotten it right.

Will, please be alive. I don’t know what I’d do without you.

Lara took a breath, then pressed the transmit lever.

“To any survivors out there, if you’re hearing this, you are not alone. There are things you need to know about our enemy — these creatures of the night, these ghouls. They are not invincible, and they have weaknesses other than sunlight. One: you can kill them with silver. Stab them, shoot them, or cut them with any silver weapon, and they will die. Two: they will not cross bodies of water. An island, a boat — get to anything that can separate you from land. Three: some ultraviolet light has proven effective, but flashlights and lightbulbs with UV don’t seem to have any effect. We don’t know why, so use this information with caution. If you’re hearing this message, you are not alone. Stay strong, stay smart, and adapt. We owe it to those we’ve lost to keep fighting, to never give up. Good luck.”

CHAPTER 34 WILL

The city of Harvest, Louisiana, like most small towns around the United States, maintained a backup water supply in a water tower. The one Will and Zoe were on now was fifty meters high, with the word “Harvest” stenciled down the side in big, blocky black letters to make them stand out against the bright white paint. It was the stark whiteness of the structure against the darkness that Will had spotted from a distance.

Getting up the water tower was simple enough. All it took was climbing. A lot of climbing. Fast climbing. Fifty meters up. He was pretty sure he was going to die about halfway, but somehow, some way, his stitches held, and miraculously he wasn’t bleeding by the time he got to the top.

The ghouls were on their heels by the time Will flung himself onto the tower’s cone-shaped roof. He had his pack over one shoulder, the M4A1 over the other, and he unslung the rifle and fired down, killing the closest ghoul — already halfway up the ladder — and slicing through three more behind it. They fell like dominos, tumbling backward, knocking loose more ghouls. It looked almost amusing, like a Three Stooges gag.

Will counted every bullet he fired, painfully aware of how many he had left in his arsenal. The current magazine was already minus the three rounds he had used back at the collaborator town, leaving him with twenty-seven.

One…

He couldn’t see the white Ford F-150 parked at the base of the tower anymore. It was simply gone, engulfed by the teeming mass of creatures racing toward the structure that rose out of the center of Harvest like a beacon.

Come one, come all! Free human blood! Come get them — if you can!

He must have laughed out loud, because he caught sight of Zoe out of the corner of his eye looking over at him, half terrified and half perplexed.

She was clinging to the tower’s roof, her shoes scraping for better contact against the smooth metal surface. Not an easy feat, given the day’s rain, which had made climbing and keeping a grip on the ladder’s rungs difficult. The leftover wetness also made accidentally slipping down the slanted rooftop a very real possibility. The tower itself didn’t have any protective railing at the top, which meant if you dropped off the side, you dropped.

Smartly, Zoe was using the metallic telecom antennas jutting up from around the sides of the tower as foot stops to keep from sliding off. The structure looked like a huge aboveground grain silo, with a massive girth that extended from top to bottom instead of the flat base and pencil-thin middle section of most water towers he was used to seeing.

Will had perched himself directly over the ladder extending up from the ground below. It was the only way up, which was more than he could have possibly hoped for. One way to access the rooftop meant only one spot to cover. When he realized that, he suddenly got excited. Up until that point, this had been a suicide run. But now, there was a chance. A slim one, but it was a chance nonetheless.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

And they were coming, all right — not that he had any doubts they wouldn’t be. If he had learned anything about the ghouls, it was that 1) they weren’t stupid; and 2) they were persistent. Goddamn persistent.

So he kept firing down, but only when the closest ghoul was within five meters of reaching the top. That ensured point-blank accuracy, and allowed for more creatures to be lined up directly below his target so the shot would keep traveling down, gravity giving the silver bullet an extra burst of speed for maximum collateral damage.

And he kept count of every bullet he fired.

Fifteen…

He mumbled a curse each time a bullet ricocheted off a bone and was deflected in a direction other than straight down. It was rare, but it happened.

Twenty-two…

Will pumped the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth round into the flesh of two separate ghouls, then fired the final two shots in rapid succession while the ghouls were still more than five meters from him, in order to give himself time to reload.

One magazine down, two to go.

The stitches along his side were holding, and he didn’t see blood seeping through his shirt when he glanced down. Thank God Zoe knew what she was doing when she put him back together. He looked over at her now, staring down at the squirming black horde gathered below them, so many that even the grass seemed to have been swallowed up. Her face was frozen in horror, her mouth slightly open, as if she wanted to scream but couldn’t get the sounds out.

He turned back to the ladder and fired the first bullet from the second magazine and watched three — no, four — ghouls tumble from the ladder.

One…

Another shot sent another three down, before the bullet bounced off track.

Two…

The water tower was cold against his backside, and he was high up enough that he could feel the chill night air. His pants were already soaked through.

Five…

He took a moment to snap a glance down at his watch, glowing underneath the darkness. 12:33 a.m.

Not bad. He only had to hold them off until…when? 6:30 a.m.? 7:00 a.m.? Close enough. It wasn’t the worst situation he had ever faced, though he imagined it would be easier if Danny were here.

Or Lara.

Or someone besides a terrified doctor.

Seven…

Zoe hadn’t moved from her spot on the angled roof, her feet spread out in front of her, each shoe pushing against a jutting cell tower. He almost smiled; she looked like a pregnant woman giving birth.

She looked over at him, her entire body trembling, making her stutter the words: “We’re going to die, aren’t we?”

“Of course not,” he said. “Don’t fall, and we’ll be fine.”

“Don’t fall,” she repeated. She looked back down at the creatures below. “Don’t fall…”

Eight…

“Don’t look,” he said. “Lay down on the roof and don’t look and don’t move.”

She was clearly unconvinced, but she lay down against the cold slanted metal surface anyway.

Nine…

After the first fifty or so ghouls, the rest began moving at a crawl. He was so used to seeing them attacking at frenzied speeds that watching them climbing up the ladder, being careful with every step, every rung they reached for, was a revelation. For every ghoul that managed to climb, another lost its footing or grip and went tumbling down into the pit of writhing flesh below.

Eleven…

“How many bullets do you have left?” Zoe asked, her voice still shaking.

“Enough.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he lied.

Thirteen…

He was on his last magazine when he started thinking about alternatives.

One…

He had the Glock. That was fifteen more silver bullets. He also had two more magazines in his pouch. That was good for thirty more rounds, for a grand total of forty-five. Which, judging by the speed the ghouls were climbing, would probably get him through another three hours. One hour per fifteen bullets.

Captain Optimism. Danny would be so proud.

Six…

He had his cross-knife. The problem with the knife was that he needed to wait for them to get all the way up before he could strike. Potentially hazardous work. One grab around his wrist, or if the knife lodged in too deep, and he would lose it — and himself right along with it, because stabbing, even downward, required leaning over the edge.

Doable, but risky.

Then there was the whole numbers game. He could only take down one at a time, which meant for every ghoul he dispatched, another would be right behind it, giving him very little time to recover. He couldn’t count on Zoe to take up any slack. He didn’t think it was possible to even pry her from her current spot.

Eleven…

His watch read: 3:19 a.m.

Zoe looked half asleep, lying with her back against the angled roof. Every few minutes she would lift her head slightly to make sure she hadn’t slipped while she had her eyes closed. If she was afraid of heights, she hadn’t said a word as he urged her up the ladder. Of course, she was probably fueled at the time by enough adrenaline for a half dozen people.

Sixteen…

A slight wind had picked up, and Will turned his face into it. He could see most of Harvest from his perch. Or at least, as much as he could pick up with the naked eye. The moon was not being very cooperative, and he had lost the bright headlights of the Ford F-150 within the world of murky blackness, shifting flesh and glinting black eyes swarming the base of the water tower.

A sudden burst of motion drew his attention, and he looked over to find Zoe fighting with her footing, having somehow ended up slightly crouched, knees bent, with one hand bracing against the cool metal under her. After some frantic struggling, she managed to push herself back into position.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I must have fallen asleep,” she said breathlessly.

He turned his attention to the ladder and the nearest ghoul clinging to it, ten meters down. He waited for it to make up the distance, then shot it in the face a few seconds later. The bullet pierced the creature’s chest and caught two more under it, sending all three plunging down. They knocked loose two more from the ladder as they fell.

Seventeen…

“How many bullets do you have left?” she asked.

“Plenty,” he said.

“But how many?”

“More than enough.” Before she could press him again, he added, “Get closer, Zoe, so I’ll be able to catch you if you doze off again.”

She scooted over slowly, taking her time. She flinched when he leaned over the ladder and fired his eighteenth bullet without warning. He sat back and held out his hand. She took it and let him pull her closer until she was sitting only a few inches away. She immediately sought out the safety of the nearby cell antennas with her shoes.

Will leaned over, watching the closest ghoul climbing from thirty meters away. The creature reached up and took another rung and pulled itself up slowly…

He slung his rifle and dug into his pack. He pulled out the gas siphoning tube, unrolled it, then looped one end around his belt and cinched it tight. He leaned toward Zoe and reached for her waist, hooking his fingers into her belt.

“What are you doing?” she asked, alarmed.

“I’m going to tie you to me, so I’ll know if you slip again. Early warning system.”

“But what if you fall?”

“Then you’re coming down with me.”

Her face turned pale.

“I can go days without sleeping if I have to,” Will said. “Can you?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Yes. You can fall.”

“So, no, then.”

He grinned back at her, then looped the other end of the tube around her belt. He pulled at it to draw her closer, before tying it into place. He left a meter length between them so they could still move without forcing the other along. He wasn’t entirely sure if the hose would hold if one of them actually did fall off the tower, but he kept that doubt to himself.

He leaned over the ladder, shot another ghoul in the chest, and watched it tumble into the darkness below, this time taking five more along with it.

Twenty…

He stretched the final rifle magazine a few minutes past 4:00 a.m. — 4:14 a.m., to be exact.

When she saw him slinging the M4A1 and drawing his Glock, Zoe said, “You’re almost out of bullets, aren’t you?”

“I have three magazines for the Glock.”

“Will that be enough?”

“Forty-five bullets in all.”

“How many bullets did you have for the rifles?”

“Thirty.”

“How many magazines?”

“Three. But one magazine only had twenty-seven rounds.”

“Eighty-seven bullets got us from eleven o’clock to three in the morning,” she said. “Four hours. Forty-five bullets will only get us two more hours. We’ll still be ninety minutes short of sunup, Will.”

Great, she can count, too.

“I’ll make it last,” he said.

“No, you won’t.”

He was struck by the matter-of-fact tone in her voice. The fear seemed to have been replaced by what sounded like resignation.

“What happens when the bullets run out?” she asked.

“I still have my knife.”

“Your knife…”

“We’ll be fine.”

Say it a third time and maybe she’ll actually believe you.

“You’re full of shit, Will,” Zoe said.

Or not.

He leaned over the ladder and shot a ghoul from five meters away. The bullet pierced its chest, hit a second ghoul directly below it. They tumbled free, knocking only one other ghoul with them this time.

Sonofabitch.

The rest continued to climb steadily, either unimpressed by or oblivious to the deaths of the others. He couldn’t even see the dead ghouls below, and figured they were crushed under the live ones fighting their way to the ladder to be the next one up.

Two…

Fifteen…

Will didn’t wait to watch the ghoul flip off the ladder. He immediately ejected the magazine, catching it with his other hand and jamming it back into the pouch (Just in case), then instinctively grabbed the next — and last — magazine.

He slipped it in, worked the slide, and leaned over the side of the water tower.

The closest ghoul was only ten meters away. Will watched it climb for a moment, one arm over the other, impossibly patient and determined, and unfathomably fearless. He wondered if they even still had the same concept of life and death anymore. Once you’ve already “died,” did it matter if you died again? Even if it was permanent this time?

“How many?” Zoe asked.

“What?”

“How many bullets do you have left?”

“This is it. Fifteen more bullets in the magazine.” He heard her chuckle, and looked over. “What’s so funny?”

“You didn’t bother to lie that time.”

He wasn’t sure if she looked horrified or amused. Maybe somewhere in between.

“I would have, but it’s obvious you know how to count,” he said.

He heard flesh slapping metal and leaned over and shot the ghoul in the head. It tumbled, taking two down with it.

One…

Zoe’s entire body had become a living spring next to him, the siphoning tube connecting their bodies quivering each time she shifted or moved, which was every few seconds. It had also gotten much colder up here, and Zoe’s entire body was shaking. He had gone numb and couldn’t feel the vibrations coming from her, of course, but he could see the tube trembling out of the corner of his eye.

Will glanced down at his watch: 6:09 a.m.

Almost there…

“Will,” Zoe said.

“Yeah?”

“What happens when you run out of bullets?”

“We’ll improvise.”

“The knife?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re going to die,” she said, her voice so low he almost didn’t hear.

He shot another ghoul, watched it do a swan dive off the ladder, somehow managing not to take a single creature with it.

The next ghoul took its place.

Two…

He fired again, and this time was rewarded with the sight of the creature collapsing straight down, taking one — then two — ghouls with it.

Three…

He noticed they were moving faster up the ladder now, and it wasn’t going well. For every ghoul that managed to scramble up two rungs without falling, two either lost their footing or grip and tumbled down. That didn’t seem to deter the rest, and they continued clamoring, moving faster and faster up toward him.

Why?

Maybe they sensed he was running out of bullets. Or maybe they—

The sunrise. They know it’s coming.

His watch confirmed it: 6:31 a.m.

Come out, come out, wherever you are, Mister Sun.

He fired, knocking three off the ladder.

Four…

“Zoe,” he said.

“Yes?”

“You need to get ready.”

“Get ready for what?” she said, her voice quivering noticeably again.

6:55 a.m.

They were coming up too fast, surging up the ladder, returning to the same frenzied pace when all of this began. It was all he could do to slash and stab with the cross-knife and suck in a fresh breath of cold air before another one tried to grab at his wrist or ankle to pull him down.

Thank God turning into ghouls hadn’t granted them any special strength; he was able to shake them off, at times kicking them loose from whatever they were hanging on to and sending them fluttering back down to the mass of bodies below.

Not that it stopped them. Or slowed them down for even a second.

Zoe was moving next to him, navigating the small, precious space at the edge of the water tower. She grabbed on to the cell antennas as if they were a lifeline, shuffling left then right, trying to keep up with his movements. She had to keep moving, because each time one of the ghouls reached the top, Will had to step back before he could slash or stab. Then once the ghoul fell, he moved forward again, back toward the ladder to greet the next one up.

He marveled at their persistence, their ability to shun all sense of self-preservation. They didn’t stop. Not for a second. The tide kept coming, churning, one after another, and for every black-skinned thing he dispatched, another took its place.

And they kept coming, and climbing, and coming…

…and climbing…

7:01 a.m…

When was sunrise? 7:10 a.m.? 7:20 a.m.?

Whatever the time, they could sense it. The ghouls were desperate to get up to the rooftop, as if they knew they only had a few minutes left. Will couldn’t see light in the skies or on the horizon. He didn’t know how much time was left. How much longer he had to hold on. So he stabbed and slashed, moving back, then forward again, then back…

And they kept coming.

Again and again, again and again…

7:09 a.m…

He was covered in slabs of thick black blood and torn flesh. The smell was overwhelming, assaulting his nostrils, making his eyes flare uncontrollably, his skin tingling with the acidic stench of death and decay. He wiped at copious globs of fluid that dripped from his hair down to his forehead and into his right eye. He spat out something that tasted like flesh, but it could have been dirt, or garbage, or some kind of filth he had no name for.

Zoe did her best to keep out of his way, struggling to hold on to the antennas, the two of them literally tied together by a hose that wasn’t designed for the task. Still, it was better than nothing, and it allowed him to keep track of her without having to look back, because he didn’t have time for that. He prayed she didn’t slip and fall, because if she did, he would go over the side right along with her. Unless, of course, the tube snapped. That was possible, too.

Amazingly, he had begun to get feelings back in his body. The more he moved, the more sensations returned to his hands, to his legs, and to his joints. It took all his strength to keep scrambling, stabbing and slashing, kicking and punching. They were weak things, like striking bags of flour. They relied on numbers, which was useless when there was only one path up the water tower.

He had to stay clear of their mouths and the crooked yellow and brown teeth, like caverns of smaller bones trying to gnaw at him. Those were dangerous. Blood itself didn’t do anything to you, but if they bit you, the direct transfer of fluids was what caused the infection.

Teeth of Death. I should write a book.

7:15 a.m…

Goddammit, where’s that damn sun?

Slowly, he became aware that the speed with which each new ghoul appeared had begun to flag. They were coming up at longer intervals now, and he was able to breathe a little bit before he had to engage another one.

He killed a ghoul, then kicked it in the chest and watched it flip over the side, and waited for the next one.

The cross-knife in his right hand was covered in blood and skin, viscous things that looked like a concentrated form of foul-smelling sweat dripping over his fist. He was only dimly aware of his ragged breathing, and his legs screamed at him for rest. His lungs burned, but it was nothing compared to the fire burning away in his side. Was he bleeding again?

He looked down. No. No blood. Well, not the red kind, anyway.

A little rest right about now would be nice.

No. Not yet.

Not yet…

He waited for the next one to emerge up the ladder, but it didn’t come.

He kept waiting…

“Will, what’s happening?” Zoe said behind him.

He shook his head and stood perfectly still.

Will hadn’t looked over the tower in a while. He hadn’t had the opportunity.

But now he did, and he saw there wasn’t a single ghoul on the ladder. They were all on the ground, and as he watched, they began to dissolve, like a pool of black ink flowing away from the base of the tower, until the grass below became visible again. And there, the Ford F-150, unveiled as if by magic (Ta-da!).

“They’re leaving,” Zoe said, her voice breathless, as if afraid just saying those two simple words out loud might jinx it somehow.

He checked his watch: 7:18 a.m.

“Oh my God, are they leaving?” she asked, her voice shaking, filled with hope.

“I think so, yeah.”

“Oh my God, Will. Oh my God.”

She rushed forward and grabbed him — and almost knocked him backward and off the side of the tower. He managed to right himself at the last moment and held on to a telecom antenna to keep from falling.

“You did it,” she said, gasping for breath, somewhere between crying and screaming with joy. “You did it, Will. I can’t believe you did it.”

Something caught his attention.

A flicker of something distinctive below, in the corner of his eye.

Something blue.

He looked down and saw, among the writhing black canvas, something that stood out. It was about forty meters from the base of the water tower, and it didn’t move as the ghouls flowed around it, like Moses parting the Red Sea. It was looking back up at him, and Will saw intense, bright blue eyes radiating out of the darkness.

Will didn’t know how he knew, he just knew who it was.

Kate.

Not the Kate he remembered, but the Kate that Lara had seen that night outside the Green Room in Harold Campbell’s facility. He had dreamt of her, but she came to him in those dreams as the old Kate, the woman he remembered and for one night, loved.

This new Kate, this ghoul Kate, was another creature entirely, and despite the distance, he could see its deep blue eyes pulsating. They weren’t like the blue of Lara’s — these were more intense, like staring into the sun. He couldn’t look away. They drew him in, fascinating him.

Then Kate smiled.

No, not Kate. A ghoul. He had to stop thinking of her (it) as Kate. This was the enemy now. This creature.

It turned and walked away with a preternatural grace that was almost majestic. He watched it go, the other ghouls squirming around it, swallowing it up — or was it the other way around?

They merged into the darkness, becoming one…then nothing.

Just like that, they were gone.

A few minutes later, the first slivers of sunlight poked through the clouds. He smiled at the sight and pushed away all thoughts of Kate, remembering all the sunrises with Lara on the beach back at Song Island instead.

7:25 a.m. Sunrise.

Good to know, good to know…

CHAPTER 35 GABY

Sunlight drew her out of a deep slumber, whether she wanted it to or not. Her head seemed stuck in some kind of cocoon where just thinking was difficult, and it felt as if she had been sleeping for the last few centuries. Every part of her body ached, and there was a lightness to her chest that wasn’t normal, as if she were still asleep and dreaming all of this.

Nate.

She sat up on a bed that was almost as big as the one in her hotel room on Song Island, but fluffier, like sleeping on clouds. She swung her legs off the bed and took in the room. A closet to her right, windows in front, and a door to her left. Barren white walls, and old-fashioned wooden floors.

Gaby blinked away the sun, loose hair falling over her face. She swiped at them and stood up. She regretted it almost immediately, and had to reach over to the wall to keep from falling. Her legs were jelly and her stomach growled from hunger. Her throat was sore and felt constricted, and she flinched when she touched it.

She forced herself to pad across the room, determined to reach the window, drawn to the bright warm light. Voices from outside made her move faster. Strength returned to her legs with every step, and by the time she reached the window, she felt like herself again.

Almost.

Dainty peach-colored curtains lifted gently against a slight breeze flowing through the open window. At the prospect of meeting other people, she became aware that she wasn’t just shoeless, but wearing only white cotton panties and a bra. She didn’t remember either articles of clothing when she had lost consciousness last night.

Was it last night? It felt longer.

She brushed aside the curtains and was confronted with burglar bars over the window. She peered down at the city street below her. No, not a city, more like a small town in the countryside. She should know. She had lived in a small town for most of her life.

People moved along the sidewalks. Adults and children in civilian clothes. A pair of men rode by on horses in the street, the clop-clop-clop of horseshoes against concrete making for a strange sound and an even odder sight.

Where the hell am I?

She made sure to keep herself hidden, very aware of her half-nakedness. A woman was holding a boy’s hand as they stood on the sidewalk watching the men on horseback pass them by. The boy waved at the horsemen. They waved back. The woman smiled, even beamed.

This isn’t right.

She looked behind her at the door and walked quickly over to it. She grabbed the doorknob and to her surprise, it turned — except the door didn’t move. There was a deadbolt or some kind of lock on the other side. She pulled at it harder, but the door wouldn’t budge. She leaned toward it, listening for sounds. There was nothing.

She banged her fist once on the door, shouted, “Hello? Can anyone hear me?”

She waited, ear pressed against the smooth wood, but there was no reply.

Where the hell was she?

Gaby slammed her fist into the door again, and shouted louder, “Is anyone out there? Can anyone hear me?”

Finally, she heard footsteps approaching. Heavy footsteps.

Combat boots.

Gaby scanned the room, looking for a weapon. She felt naked without her guns.

There was nothing in the room that could be mistaken for a weapon. Whoever had put her in here had made sure of that. There were just the big pillows on the bed and the duvet she had thrown aside when she woke up. A small end table next to the bed, spalted maple, with tall, thin legs, and an armoire next to the window.

“Adapt or perish.”

Gaby moved quickly across the room and picked up the end table by two of its legs. It was surprisingly light and barely weighed more than a pound despite its length. She hurried back to the door, moving on tiptoes to keep the noise down. She lifted the nightstand up to her shoulders, positioning herself near the hinges of the door so that whoever opened it wouldn’t be able to see her right away.

She sucked in a breath and waited.

The footsteps finally reached the door, and moments later, she heard the deadbolt retracting. Then the door opened slowly, cautiously, and she gripped the legs of the end table even tighter. A man’s head peered in, looking toward the bed, and she saw the barrel of an AK-47 over the man’s shoulder.

She smashed the table down on top of the man’s head, breaking all four legs on impact. The man slumped to the floor and Gaby grabbed the door and threw it open and—

Stared at a man holding a Glock in her face.

He was short, and for a moment she thought he was a kid. As the adrenaline faded, the kid morphed into a man who stood five feet away from the door. It suddenly occurred to her that he had probably used the first man as bait.

He motioned for her to step back, and she did. He grinned, showing perfect teeth — except for a big gap in the front, which looked like a dark tunnel surrounded by white pearls.

“I told this dummy you were probably going to try something,” the man said. “Girls, I told him, you just can’t trust them. Always conniving, am I right?” The short man stepped over the other man stirring on the floor. “Can I call you Gaby?”

“Sure,” Gaby said, “as long as you tell me where I am.”

“You can call me Mason.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

He grinned. He was either very satisfied with himself, or maybe that was just his natural look. Either way, she battled the urge to leap forward and punch him in the face.

“Where the hell am I?” she asked.

She had retreated all the way back to the bed. She saw the way Mason looked at her — leered at her, really — but she had learned to detach herself from that kind of overt pig behavior a long time ago. Now, she allowed him to get a good look while she used the time to go over her options.

Not that she had very many at the moment, but if training with Will and Danny had taught her anything, it was that there were always options, a way out. You just had to look for it. The problem was, some were trickier to recognize than others.

She used the time to gather intelligence, looking past Mason without letting him know she was doing it. There was a long hallway behind him, doors, and the beginning of a staircase at the far end.

“L15,” Mason said.

“What?”

“This place. L15.”

“L15?” she repeated. “What kind of name is that?”

Mason holstered his gun. He had wisely kept a large enough distance between them that Gaby estimated she would need at least a full two seconds to reach him. That was plenty of time for him to see her coming.

The asshole’s smarter than he looks.

“They haven’t gotten around to giving the place a proper name yet,” Mason said. “Right now it’s just L15.”

Behind Mason, the first man was slowly pulling himself up from the floor. He got to his knees and rubbed at his head, and when he saw blood on his palms, he gave Gaby a nasty glare.

Mason glanced back and chuckled. “You might want to get that looked at, Mac. You don’t look so hot.”

Mac picked himself up from the floor with some effort, made sure he still had his AK-47, then stumbled back through the open door, dripping blood as he went.

“How did I get here?” Gaby asked.

“You don’t know?” Mason said.

“I don’t remember.”

“It’ll all come back to you eventually.”

“Where’s Nate?”

“Who?”

“The man I was with.”

“What do I look like, your personal assistant? How the fuck should I know.”

Mason turned and stepped over the pieces of the end table scattered on the floor. For a second — just a second — she considered rushing him, but he was too far away, and her chances were slim.

“They’ll bring you some food soon,” Mason said, stepping into the hallway. “If you’re smart, you won’t try this again. I’m a patient man, but some of these guys, like Mac? Not so much.” He looked back at her, one hand on the doorknob, eyes roaming her body without an ounce of discretion. “There are clothes in the closet. It’s been a while since these boys have seen a hot piece of ass like you, so you might want to cover up, show less skin, if you know what I mean.”

He closed the door and she heard the deadbolt sliding back into place, then footsteps fading into the background.

Gaby remembered flashes of images from last night—was it last night? Maybe longer, from the way her stomach was growling. Her tongue felt as if it were moving across an arid desert.

Nate…

The loud, rumbling sound of an approaching vehicle (vehicles?) invaded her thoughts. She hurried across the room and back to the window, and saw a group of green military transport trucks moving down the street. She remembered them from the camp in Sandwhite Wildlife State Park, though these were probably not the same ones. Or were they?

People in the streets had stopped to watch as five of the trucks entered town, moving at very slow speeds. Not that they had to. There were no other vehicles anywhere that she could see, unless you counted the half dozen people on horseback.

As the trucks drove under her window, Gaby glimpsed the faces of men, women, and children looking out from the back flaps. Bright, smiling faces. Eager faces. The trucks came to squelching stops, and people began climbing out of the backs. Pregnant women, dozens of them, were helped down from their own transports. More people came out of buildings, gathering in the streets and converging on the newcomers, offering food, water, handshakes, and hugs.

They think this is salvation. This place. This…L15.

She felt a hollowness in her stomach that had nothing to do with the lack of food. Her mind spun, trying to understand, processing everything she was seeing, everything she had learned the last few days.

Sandwhite. Josh. And now, L15.

She remembered what Will had said, back when they first discovered the camp in Sandwhite: “I think we’re looking at the next phase of whatever final solution the ghouls are moving toward.”

Was this it? The final solution? Humans living in towns run by ghouls?

She shivered even as she listened to the bright, contagious laughter coming from the street below her, the very real, very unmistakable sounds of people delirious with happiness.

This is how mankind ends. Not with resistance, but with laughter…

CHAPTER 36 WILL

“So many cars,” Zoe said. “You’d think there would be at least one that would work. My feet are killing me.”

They had been walking for the last hour, ever since they climbed down from the Harvest water tower and discovered the Ford F-150 destroyed. The truck’s engine was gutted and the battery missing. Will expected the truck to be useless after the damage it endured last night, but the fact that they took the battery was unexpected. He wondered if it had anything to do with Kate being here last night. The ghouls tended to act unpredictable when the blue-eyed ones were around.

His pack had felt disturbingly light as he climbed down the water tower, reminding him that he was carrying around empty magazines for the carbine and Glock. They walked away from the water tower, over the cemetery of bones bleached white by the sun around the base of the structure. The lingering smell of vaporized flesh was suffocating and Zoe threw up twice before she finally made it to the other side. Zoe took twenty minutes to clean his bandages and check his stitches, breathing through her mouth the entire time.

After an hour of walking, the highway didn’t look any closer. Will hadn’t been able to see where he was going last night as he fled the ghoul horde; he had only known where he was heading — the bright, white-painted water tower.

“Where are we going anyway?” Zoe asked after a while.

“The highway.”

“And after that?’

“Lafayette.”

“That’s far away.”

“Yup.”

“Can we really walk all the way to Lafayette in one day?”

“Sure we can.”

She gave him a doubtful look.

“It’s only thirty-eight kilometers,” Will said. “Give or take.”

“Kilometers?” she smirked. “What are you, European all of a sudden? What’s that in miles?”

He sighed. “Twenty-three miles ish.”

“Better.”

“See? Not too far.”

“How long in terms of walking?”

“Three miles an hour at regular walking speed. That’s—”

“Over seven hours, Will. Without stopping for food or water.”

“We can always pick up our speed.”

She gave him another doubtful look.

“Or I can put you on my back and carry you,” he said.

She managed a smile. “Now you’re talking.”

“I was kidding.”

“Oh,” she said.

They stopped at a Shell gas station and raided the shelves for food, warm bottles of water, and anything else they could eat or drink. Will stuffed the pack with supplies, then grabbed a pair of cheap T-shirts off a rack and swapped one of them with his blood-soaked one. He poured water over his head and shook off as much leftover ghoul smell as possible, then slipped on a yellow and purple cap. He grabbed an extra one for Zoe and waited for her outside on the curb.

Zoe came out looking refreshed. She was apparently better at cleaning herself than he was. Zoe had also swapped shirts, and her long drying blonde locks fell across her face and shoulders.

“Did you even wash?” she asked, wrinkling her nose at him.

“I did the best I could.”

“Your best sucks. I could have given you a hand.”

“Maybe next time.” He handed her the spare baseball cap. “For the sun.”

“Thanks.”

She slipped it between her legs, then grabbed her hair in a big bundle and somehow got it into a bun, tying it in place with a rubber band. Lara could do that too, and for the life of him he could never quite figure out how they managed something so complicated so effortlessly.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Famished,” she said, and took a spicy Jack Link’s beef jerky that he had pulled out of his pack. “So, Lafayette?”

“Lafayette. Then Song Island after that.”

“And hot showers.”

“And hot showers,” he nodded.

After about an hour of searching every store that stood between them and the highway, he finally located a small hunting outlet called Renny’s in a strip mall. He swapped his blood-stained pants, well-worn combat boots, and socks for new ones off the rack. He also found plenty of ammo under the counters. Will grabbed as many 9mm and 5.56x45mm rounds as he could find and reloaded his weapons, then shoved as much as he could carry into the pack.

He left Renny’s feeling better about his chances of getting back to the island than he had all day, and went looking for Zoe.

She had spent most of her time going through the cars in the parking lot. When he caught up to her, she gave him an approving look. “You still smell like something died, but it’s an improvement. Hell, from a distance I might even mistake you for handsome, Will.”

“I’m sure there was a compliment in there somewhere. Any luck?”

“I didn’t find a working car, but I did find something that might be even better.”

She led him across the parking lot to a Jeep Wrangler squeezed in between a red Taurus and a black minivan. It wasn’t the Jeep she wanted to show him, but two mountain bikes clinging to its back. One was bright yellow, the other white, and both were held in place by looping steel chains with separate padlocks.

Zoe looked back at him, then at the knife in its sheath. “Can that thing cut through steel?”

“No.”

“Damn. Any ideas how to get the bikes free, then?”

“Did you search for the keys?”

“You think they’re around here?”

“Usually people keep their keys in one big bundle. Like on a key ring.”

“Good point.” She hurried over to the Jeep’s front door, opened it, and leaned in, then came back out a few seconds later with a large key ring. “It was in the ignition. I turned it, but the car didn’t start, so I just assumed it was worthless.”

She tossed it to him. Will flipped through the dozen or so keys, found two identical small ones, and tried them on the locks, opening both.

“Awesome,” Zoe said with a big smile. “All those years of riding the stationary bike at the hospital gym will finally come in handy.”

Thanks to the bikes, they were able to reach the highway much faster, and before long they were heading south on the I-49 highway back toward Lafayette. There was little traffic this far out from the city, so they were able to bicycle anywhere on the road for long stretches.

Will estimated they did eleven kilometers in the first hour, about only half as much as he was hoping for. Despite her supposed long history of bicycling, it had been exactly eleven months since Zoe had actually climbed onto a bike, so she had to rebuild some of her lost stamina. That slowed them down, though he didn’t mention it. They stopped twice to drink and eat to keep up their strength.

He was happier with their progress in the second hour when they managed fifteen kilometers. Soon, they were moving along the shoulder as traffic began to thicken and more cars started to appear ahead of them.

Will glanced at his watch as they pushed further into Lafayette. They had crawled down from the water tower at 7:35 in the morning, and it took them another two hours before they found the bikes. They were pushing one in the afternoon by the time they finally spotted Lafayette in the distance, along with the sea of vehicles shimmering across the highway in front of them.

Zoe pulled up alongside him. “You think we can bicycle all the way down to Beaufont Lake before nightfall?”

“Not a chance,” Will said without hesitation.

“Damn. I was so hoping for one those hot showers you promised, clean some more of this…whatever this is off me.”

By 2:30 p.m., Will could see the pretzel-like Marabond Throughway, where I-49 reconnected with Interstate 10. The sight of the large blocks of concrete, like the heads of a hydra, made him briefly think about Jen’s helicopter. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing pieces of it still scattered along the length of the highway when they finally reached that part of the city.

There was a brief rush of wind as Zoe raced past him.

“Zoe, slow down,” he said after her.

She threw a mischievous grin back at him. “I told you I was good at this. Ten years of biking at the gym, remember?”

“Pull back, I don’t want you getting too far ahead.”

“Oh come on, the big tough Ranger can’t keep up?”

“Zoe, pull back.”

She ignored him and pushed forward when the gunshot shattered the air, like lightning striking the ground an inch from his ear.

In front of him, Zoe was falling sideways off her bike. Her head landed so hard on the concrete that he was afraid she might have split it open. The bike spilled under her legs, front reflectors cracking against the highway.

Will was already jumping off his own bike, pushing it away from him, even before the gunshot finished its echo across the skyline. He reached for his rifle with one hand and grabbed Zoe with the other, dragging her noncompliant body all the way behind the back bumper of a beat-up Ford Bronco.

Gunshots rained down on them instantly, shattering windshields and tearing into the highway around them like missiles.

He didn’t stop moving until he had her completely behind the truck and propped up against the bumper, just as the rear windshield collapsed under the onslaught. He unslung the pack and held it over his and Zoe’s head as glass fell down on them.

Zoe stared back at him, lips quivering, eyes wide with terror. He couldn’t tell if she was panicking, dying, or both. She flinched each time she heard a bullet ping! off a vehicle.

He grabbed her and looked behind her, saw a hole in her shirt and blood flowing out the back. The bullet had gone through her, which was a good sign, even if the sheer amount of blood pouring out onto the highway suggested otherwise. A through and through was a good thing. He was proof of that.

“I have to stop the bleeding,” Will said.

She nodded back, then gasped audibly when a bullet chipped the concrete a few feet from her. Will opened his pack and pulled out a spare T-shirt and a roll of duct tape.

“This is going to hurt,” he said.

“Do it,” she said, barely getting the words out through clenched teeth.

He mouthed a countdown from three to one, and when he got to one, she removed her hands and he shoved the T-shirt against her side. She let out a loud squeal of pain, thrashing involuntarily against him. Will stretched the shirt around her body along one side, covering up both bullet holes. She did her part, pressing both bloodied hands back down over the shirt, while he ran the duct tape around her once, twice, taping the shirt to her body.

The gunfire from up the highway hadn’t stopped, though it had lessened. He guessed their ambushers were trying to gauge if they had hit anything. A final bullet zipped above their heads, passing through where the back windshield used to be, and vanished into the hood of a blue Hyundai.

Zoe was trying to control her ragged breathing, sweat pouring down her face. He couldn’t tell if she or the pain was winning.

“You’re doing good,” he said.

He reached into the pack again, pulled out a bottle of pills, and deposited it into her shaking palm.

“Don’t take too many, you might get addicted,” he said, smiling at her.

She somehow managed to grin back. “You’re such an asshole.”

She popped open the bottle and upended it against her lips, swallowing without chewing.

Will slipped toward the edge of the back bumper and pulled the nylon pouch with the baton and mirror out of the pack. He snapped the baton out to its full sixteen inches and connected the mirror to the end before easing the rod out from behind the Bronco and using it to scan the highway.

At first he saw only parked vehicles — a glut of them, crammed from one end of the I-49’s southbound lane to the other — but then he began to pick up movement.

There was definitely more than one, peering out from behind cars, fifty — maybe sixty — meters ahead. Which convinced him whoever had fired that first shot had jumped the gun. He would have kept going, oblivious to what awaited him up the highway if the man hadn’t shot early. That was one of the first things you learned in a war zone — patience and calm in the face of an approaching enemy. That, and you never spoil a perfectly good ambush by firing too early.

He spotted four men, each one wearing a hazmat suit, though none were wearing their gas mask. He was almost sure there were more than four of them from just the sheer volume of gunfire. At least five, with a possibility of six, maybe even seven if he was really, really unlucky.

He watched one of the men moving across the length of an old ’80s station wagon with wood paneling. The car was parked across the lanes, probably after spinning out of control. The man was shuffling away from the front passenger-side window where he had been crouched earlier. He moved laterally toward the hood, where he rested a hunting rifle and fired off a shot.

The mirror attached to the baton exploded, showering Will with glass fragments. He dropped the baton with a curse, then reached down and pulled out a thin shard of glass sticking out of his right arm. He flicked it away, ignoring the little trickle of blood.

The problem was the guy who had just fired that last shot. He remembered the man from the camp. The one with the bolt-action hunting rifle, equipped with the big scope. The guy just shot a mirror that was only three inches in diameter from fifty meters. Big riflescope or not, that was pretty damn impressive.

“Nice mirror!” a voice shouted. It was male, deep, and it sounded familiar. “Where’d you get that? Archers? Nice place to shop. We were gonna hit it later ourselves, stock up and whatnot.”

Will didn’t answer. Instead, he listened to the man’s booming voice rattle down the length of the highway, before it eventually died in the breeze.

“He sends his regards!” the man shouted. “Your old buddy! Josh!”

Josh?

“He wanted to be here himself,” the man continued, “but he had other business. He told me you’d be coming back in this direction sooner or later. Of course, we thought you’d be coming by car, not bicycles. That really threw us for a loop, let me tell you!”

He had heard that voice before, over the radio.

“Kellerson?” Will shouted.

“Bingo!” the man shouted back.

Sonofabitch.

He looked back at Zoe. Her face was pale, but she wasn’t trembling nearly quite as much as before. She stared back at him with sunken eyes and seemed to be breathing fine, though that might have just been a combination of adrenaline and pills.

“We’ll be fine,” Will said. “Trust me, okay?”

“Okay,” she nodded back.

He couldn’t tell if she actually believed the lie or if she was humoring him. It was impossible to read anything in her face at the moment. He wondered if he had looked that spaced out after getting shot a few days ago.

“Hey, you still alive back there?” Kellerson shouted. “It goes without saying, we can do this all day. Got supplies and more ammo than we know what to do with them. And night ain’t your friend, but then you probably already know that, don’t you?”

Will scooted back toward Zoe and felt her pulse. Weak, but it was still there.

“You’re doing good,” he smiled at her. “I’ll be back, okay?”

She didn’t respond. He wasn’t sure if she couldn’t, or if she didn’t want to. He could almost feel her drifting away, leaving her body.

“Hey, Will!” Kellerson shouted. “Josh told us you were a badass ex-Army Ranger. I gotta say, I’m unimpressed, man!”

Even before Kellerson finished the word “man,” Will was darting across the highway. There were only two meters between the Bronco and a large Suburban minivan in the next lane. It was a quick dash, with only the two mountain bikes in his way. Will had to leap over them, raising his profile higher than he wanted.

He heard a gunshot and a bullet zipped past his head, almost taking his ear off.

And he saw something else in the half-second he was in the air — a man in a hazmat suit on the other side of the concrete barrier that separated the south and northbound lanes. The man had apparently been making his trek down the highway for a while and was only ten meters from Will’s position when Will spotted him.

The man froze, looking like a kid caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. Will landed behind the minivan and snapped off a quick shot in the man’s direction. He managed to hit the man in the right shoulder and watched him spin and drop, disappearing behind the concrete barrier.

Will ducked his head just as the minivan’s windshields exploded, and glass poured down on top of and around him. Bullets that didn’t pelt the Suburban’s sides — the ping ping ping! going into metal like chimes — dug lengthy grooves across the highway floor.

He leaned out from behind the Suburban and glanced at where he had last seen the man in the northbound lane. He saw a thick head of blond hair bobbing along the barrier, fleeing back up the highway. Will considered taking a shot to finish the man off, but that would have involved leaning almost completely out from behind the minivan, and he had a feeling the guy with the hunting rifle was waiting patiently back there at the station wagon for a shot. Throughout the torrent of gunfire, Will had heard the familiar rattles of M4 carbines, but not a single shot from a bolt-action rifle. The man was just waiting for him to make a mistake.

Then the gunfire stopped, and there was just the heavy silence of a dead city again.

That, too, didn’t last.

“Hey, Will!” Kellerson shouted. “You still alive back there?”

Will didn’t answer.

“Come on!” Kellerson continued. “Cat got your tongue? You know you’re not going anywhere. This is it, buddy! This is the end of the line! Make it easier on yourself and the blonde! Throw out your weapons and I’ll end it quick. Scout’s honor!”

Will glanced toward the highway barrier again, expecting another figure to rush up alongside it, having used Kellerson’s taunting as cover. The man was talking so much Will thought it had to be a trick, some kind of clever diversion.

But no, there was no one on the other side this time.

He’s just a loudmouth, after all.

“Will?” Kellerson shouted. “This is getting boring, man. I’m giving you till the count of five, then we’re coming. I got no time for this Alamo bullshit! You ready, buddy? Five!”

Will looked back across the lane at Zoe. Her eyes were closed, and she looked on the verge of sliding off the Bronco’s back bumper at any second. After three solid seconds of staring, he couldn’t tell if she was still breathing.

He thought about how she had come back to rescue him when she didn’t have to…

“Four!”

He flicked the fire selector on the M4A1 to full-auto. If they tried to bull rush him, he could probably take three, maybe four if he was really lucky.

Captain fucking Optimism.

Not that he had much of a choice. He and Zoe were dead if he stayed still.

“Three!”

They had stopped firing, and he guessed they were getting ready to do exactly what Kellerson had promised — move on him. Of course, they weren’t going to make it easy to pick them off. They would probably do it slowly, moving between vehicles, keeping behind cover the entire time. Eventually, they would reach him. That was the problem.

Eventually they would be right on top of him.

“Two!”

Will was going to stand up, take the fight to them, when he heard a series of gunshots — and this time the bullets weren’t coming at him or hitting the Suburban or scalping the highway around his vicinity. Instead, the gunfire sounded like they were coming from a handgun — a Glock — and they were hitting cars up the highway—behind the ambushers.

The hell—?

Will stood up behind the Suburban and peeked through the broken windows. The hazmat suits were returning fire on someone else further up the highway. The figure was wearing black and had ducked behind the highway barrier on the northbound lane after drawing their attention, and bullets were chopping into the thick concrete block in front of him, spraying the air with a fine white powder.

For a moment, he thought it was the blond who had tried to flank him earlier, but no, it couldn’t have been the same person. That guy was wearing a hazmat suit, while this one was dressed all in black. It looked like some kind of assault vest, too.

Then there was a single, very deliberate shot, and Will saw the man with the hunting rifle flinching as something hit him in the chest. He collapsed to the highway, disappearing behind the ’80s station wagon he had been using as cover.

A second player.

There was a second shot, and another man stood up, grabbing at his neck as blood gushed out between his fingers. A third shot knocked the man down for good.

Kellerson’s men were returning fire in the direction of the second gunman now. The man was leaning out from behind a white van with “Arnold’s Plumbing” stenciled across the side, along with a cartoon picture of a toilet with a smiley face. The shooter, also wearing dark black (assault vest?), had slipped behind the van to dodge the return volley. Bullets stitched the side of the van and shattered windows.

Will quickly came out from behind the Suburban and moved steadily up the highway, using the distraction to his advantage. The phrase “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” rushed across his mind.

He flicked the fire selector on the M4A1 back to semi-auto as he spotted the closest man in a hazmat suit to him, standing behind a Dodge Ram. The man was reloading his M4, desperately trying to jam the magazine in but having a difficult time lining it up. Will shot the man twice in the back and watched him disappear behind the truck.

Another man in a hazmat suit stood up from behind a brown Buick, directly in front of Will. The man was lifting his rifle and spinning around, but Will beat him to it and shot him once in the chest. The man staggered backward but didn’t go down. Will saw the familiar rectangular lump of a Kevlar vest over the man’s chest and shot him again, this time in the face.

Two figures flashed across his peripheral vision, moving out from cars in front of him. The white-clad men raced across the lane toward the concrete barrier. One of them threw himself over it so fast he tripped and fell down on the other side. Someone shot the second man in the back before he could make the jump, and he stumbled and comically hit his forehead on the concrete divider, sliding down it face-first.

Will hurried out from behind the Buick and glanced over at the plumbing van, seeing a familiar face grinning back at him over the distance.

Sonofabitch.

Will returned the man’s grin, then jogged over to the barrier and leaped over it, landing on the other side. He moved up quickly toward the hazmat suit that had stumbled and fallen. There were fresh blood splatters along this side of the highway, most likely from the blond he had shot earlier.

He found a man in a hazmat suit lying on his back near the divider, still alive and holding on to his right arm, which was twisted at an odd, unnatural angle. One of the man’s knees was scraped and bloodied, and his M4 rifle lay forgotten at his feet. The man looked over as Will jogged toward him, and for a moment — just a moment — Will was sure he would reach for his weapon.

But he didn’t. Instead, the man lay still until Will was finally standing over him.

Will looked past the man and up the highway, and spotted another hazmat suit-clad figure lying on its stomach about ten meters farther up the northbound lane. The blond he had shot earlier. The poor bastard had apparently run into someone else who had finished him off.

Will turned his attention back to the man at his feet. He was in his forties, and in another time, another place, Will would have pegged him as a husband with two kids, a house in the suburbs, and a wife that constantly browbeat him about drinking or smoking too much. The guy looked completely average and plain.

“Kellerson?” Will said.

The man grinned up at him. “Shit, you cheated. You had reinforcements.”

“In my defense, I didn’t know they were coming.”

“That right?” Kellerson said.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, then, I guess that changes everything.” Kellerson sighed. “So what happens now?”

Will pulled a silver-chromed.45 Smith & Wesson revolver out of Kellerson’s holster. “Nice gun.”

“Thanks. I stole it.”

“I figured.”

“Then again, is it really stealing if it’s just lying there?”

“Probably not.”

Will heard footsteps and looked over at a blond in his mid-twenties coming toward him from the other side of the barrier. He was wearing a stripped-down black assault vest and throat mic rig, and was holding a Glock in his hand. He looked almost shell-shocked.

“You good?” Will asked.

The guy stared back at him, as if unsure how to respond. Finally, he nodded and said, “I think I’m okay.”

“Okay’s always good.”

“You must be Will,” he said.

“I must be. Got a name?”

“Roy.”

Will nodded at the dead blond. “You?”

“Yeah, he sort of just ran into me,” Roy said, almost embarrassed. “I got really lucky.”

“You’re one of the newbies that showed up on the island. You came with Bonnie and the others.”

“Yeah.”

“Nice work, Roy.”

“Thanks. I was just doing what Danny told me.”

Danny appeared, eating beef jerky out of an Oberto bag, his rifle slung over his shoulder. He looked as if he were on a casual stroll. “Well, well, well, look who I gone and stumbled across. You look like shit, buddy.”

“Good to see you, too,” Will said. “How’s Lara?”

“She’s miffed. But good. Bossing the whole island around while you were gone.”

“That’s my girl.”

“I keep telling her to move on, that she’s way too good for you. You never call, you never write, you never visit. You’re no damn good, I say. She could do so much better.”

“You’re a real pal, Danny.”

“My advice? Put on a cup before you step back onto Song Island.”

“Noted.”

Danny glanced down the highway. “I saw someone else with you back there. Wouldn’t happen to be Gaby, would it?”

“Gaby?” Will looked back at him. “Isn’t she back at the island? She left me days ago.”

“She didn’t show up. That’s why I’m out here. Lara sent me to come looking for you two idiots.”

Will frowned. “I don’t know where she is.”

“From what I can tell, she had major ghoul trouble at a pawnshop off the highway where she was staying. It looked like a hell of a fight. That’s where we were coming from when we heard your little spontaneous block party up here.”

Gaby.

Dammit. He was hoping at least one of them had made it back home.

“You found blood at the pawnshop?” Will asked.

“A lot, yeah,” Danny said.

“Shit.”

“You talking about the blonde?” Kellerson said. “Josh’s girl.”

Will looked down at him. “What do you know about it?”

“Lots.”

“Bullshit.”

“Blonde. Five-seven. Gorgeous. Hard to forget a piece of ass like that.”

Will and Danny exchanged a look, before Will focused his stare back on Kellerson. “Is she alive?”

“Last time I saw her,” Kellerson said.

“When was this?”

“A day ago.”

“The blood back there was old,” Danny said. “At least two days. If he saw her a day ago, that means she’s still alive.”

“What else do you know?” Will asked.

Kellerson grinned back at him. “Why should I tell you? You’re just going to kill me anyway. Howzabout we make a deal first. I tell you what I know, and we forget this little unfortunate incident ever happened. What do you say?”

“Danny,” Will said, “there’s someone down the highway. Her name’s Zoe. I don’t know if she’s still alive or not. Behind the Bronco.”

“Come on, kid,” Danny said to Roy. “Let’s go lend a hand.”

“What’s he gonna do?” Roy asked.

“Don’t worry about it. Willie boy’s a real smooth talker when he wants to be. How’d you think he got Lara in the first place?”

Roy gave Will and Kellerson a hesitant look before turning and following Danny down the highway.

“You wanna hear a joke?” Danny asked.

“Sure, I guess,” Roy said.

“A priest, a rabbit, and a horse walk into a bar…” Danny began, his voice fading down the highway.

Kellerson was staring up at Will, though he seemed to have lost some of his earlier confidence. “We have a deal?”

Will pulled out his cross-knife. The sunlight glinted off the silver double-edged blade.

“You’re bluffing,” Kellerson said, his eyes shifting from the knife to Will and back again. “You’re not going to kill me. You’ll never find the girl if you do.”

“I don’t have to kill you,” Will said. “I just have to make you wish you were dead. But you are going to tell me everything you know. If you make me ask a question twice, I’ll take a finger. When I’m out of fingers, I’ll start taking toes…”