Vikram agreed. The malignancy -oh, for the days when I could call it a "neoplasm" with a straight face!-is like a football now, or some horrible fetus growing inside her. Some nights while shes sedated I place a hand on its smooth edge and imagine I can feel it kicking. Ive been working for so long with no result... I should take a break. [Lab Notes, 8/17/04]

A dead girl, maybe fifteen years old, pushed down the hall, one side pressed up tight against the cream-painted cinder blocks. She left a trail of blood from behind her, blood which had soaked through her hair, ruined her clothes. She didn't seem to care.

Nilla balled her hands into fists and then let go of them again. The pain in her left hand -she wondered if she'd broken it while getting out of her manacles-brought her into perfect focus. Time to take stock.

There was shooting everywhere-it came to her from every darkened corridor, every pool of emergency lighting. Smoke filled one hallway. She was pretty sure the prison was on fire. The dead moved through the prison like they owned the place. And she was one of the dead. She walked as calmly as she could past the dead teenager-the girl didn't even reach for her, didn't waste a moment's energy on Nilla-and stepped through a doorway.

The armless freak blocked her path. He didn't look all that great. Skin had peeled away from most of his naked chest, long strips of it dangling around his waist. His face had puffed up and turned black with rot and his eyes looked like frosted glass. The smell of him would make animals run away.

He wasn't quite used up, though. He grinned down at her in the darkness, really grinned- how was that possible? There wasn't enough left of hi s brain to feel any satisfaction in intimidating her.

The grin slid into leering territory as she studied it.

Fuck off, she told him. Something cold and sharp throbbed in her chest-maybe her dead heart going into cardiac arrest. Just... leave me alone. Get out of the way.

The grin opened and he made an obscene sucking noise. Nnnnnuggghhh, he told her, and she took a step back in extreme shock. He coughed and tried again. No, he said, finally.

The explanation leapt to her mind and she felt foolish. Mael, stop playing games. Fancy you saying as much, Mael said through Dick's mouth. The words were slurred, turned sideways by the corpse's swollen tongue and pulverized in his broken teeth but she understood him just fine. You, who's been playing me for a fool this whole time. I have plans for you still, I think we have a real future together, but for just now I think it's best if you sit tight.

Bullshit. This place is going to hell-I want out! Nilla exclaimed. If you were to be hurt, I would feel ju st- he said, but he didn't finish. She had started to duck under and around Dick's left side and Mael had to lean over to try to stop her. Which was exactly what she'd wanted him to do. She brought her feet up and slid across the monster's craning back and was behind him before he could even straighten up again.

She didn't waste any time after that. A corridor opened up before her, long and straight and pierced with pencil-thin windows. She dashed down it, or rather lumbered with as much alacrity as she could muster. She could feel the weight and mass of Dick behind her as Mael propelled his stolen corpse in pursuit, she could sense him back there with the hairs on the back of her neck but she refused to turn. She reached a doorway at the far end of the corridor and skidded through. She tried slamming the door shut behind her only to find that it was held open by some kind of magnetic stopper. While she tried to figure out how to release the mechanism she heard Dick smash into a wall not ten feet away.

She turned to head deeper into the maze-like prison but had to stop in her tracks. A soldier was standing in the doorway just ahead, staring at her, breathing hard. His eyes were very wide.

Ma'am, it's alright, I can protect you, he said. I promise we'll get out of here together. Dick stumbled out into the hallway and wobbled on his feet for a second, trying to get his bearings perhaps. The soldier raised his rifle to his eye and fired three rounds in one quick burst. The noise was huge in the narrow corridor, the muzzle flash blinding. Holes popped open in Dick's chest and neck and face and he spun around and fell to the floor.

The soldier was smart enough not to head over to Dick's body and check it for signs of unlife. Dick lay crumpled, his head down and away from the soldier, his legs splayed out before him. The soldier took aim again and unloaded half a clip into the dead man's back. Shit, he screamed, and fired again. In the shadowy hallway he couldn't seem to land a head shot.

He stepped closer, the n closer still. He raced up and kicked Dick's remaining shoe and then danced back, but nothing happened. Licking his lips he stepped closer until he was looming over Dick's collapsed form. He raised his weapon to his face, ready to blow Dick's head off once and for all. Ma'am, stay back, he shouted at her.

Dick sat up with enough force to knock the rifle butt right into the soldier's eye, making him scream loud enough to hurt Nilla's ears. Not half as loudly, of course, as when Dick sank his incisors intothe soldier's thigh and tore off a thick gobbet of flesh.

Nilla didn't stick around to watch.

If I only had more time to be sure. What am I screwing with here? Pinched the field for almost three seconds this morning. I could feel it bunching up, the heat of it on my hands. Warm, pleasant. Invigorating. This is crazy-Im crazy! Im not a scientist anymore, Im a witch doctor, painted red and shaking rattles at the back of a cave. Except... it works. [Lab Notes, 9/4/04]

In a disused kitchen full of dust and spiders Nilla tripped over a fat woman whose legs had been gnawed down to splayed fragments of bone. The corpse kept trying to get up, to pull herself up to a standing position by grabbing at a table above her. She would get a few inches off the ground and then fall back again with a sputtering creak, only to try again, and again.

Nilla picked up an institutionalsized can of beets and bashed the dead woman's head in. Then she sat down on the floor next to the twice-dead corpse and tried to think of what to do next. She felt tired, so tired. At least part of that had to do with the light. The emergency lights in the prison were everywhere and they were bright enough to let you see where the doors and exits were. The light came at weird angles, though, and it was dim enough that as you approached someone in the halls they looked like nothing more than a dull shadow. It was impossible to know if they were alive or dead.

Nilla. Nilla, speak with me. I can get you out of here if you'll speak with me. Mael's voice had softened. Once his intrusions into her head had been buzzing, clattering torrents of noise. Now they almost sounded like her own thoughts. It was hard to resist him, harder than it had ever been before. He was figuring her out, learning her buttons, her triggers. He was going deep, inside of her mind, and she wasn't sure she could extract him anymore without hurting herself in the process.

And was that such a bad thing? She had to wonder. She was pretty sure he was crazy, but at least in the middle of his insanity there was a place for her. Why do you hide from me, lass? I thought we were finally getting on alright. Just say something, will you? Say something so I can figure out where you are. Then I can get you to safety.

She kept her mo uth shut. She just wasn't sure, yet. There was so much of her, so much she couldn't see. There had been a complete human being, somebody with a personality all her own, with likes and dislikes and beliefs and attitudes and, and, and... memories. There had been memories and now they were hidden from her. That person had just stopped. When she died, that person had stopped functioning. Those memories had been barred from her, hidden behind a wall she couldn't seem to break down.

Were those things lost forever? Would she ever get her memories back? Mael promised her a name. He had implied there was more. She knew better than to trust him completely, though. For all she knew he had nothing and whatever name he gave her would just be made up. Imaginary.

Lass. Don't you know I'm your friend? Don't you know it by now? I've done so much for you. Is this how you repay me? Jason Singletary could have told her the truth, but he was dead now. Twice dead. She and Dick had devoured his body between them. It was the closest thing to mercy that she had possessed to give him.

She thought maybe that she had started over. That dying had relieved her of the burden of having a past. Or maybe it gave her a duty-a duty to rebuild her humanity. Maybe she had been brought back for a rea son, but not for Mael's reason. Jason Singletary had certainly thought so. She was the only one, he'd said, who could go to that place. That place in the mountains, that place at the end of the world.

The place Captain Clark had shown her, in a photograph. She stood up slowly and dusted off her pants. She left the kitchen. She took the next left turn just because she recalled that when you were lost in a maze you were supposed to take every left turn. That much she could remember.

The corridor beyond was long and dark and cold. At its far end she saw a rectangle of pale light. She moved toward it. She was drawn toward it. I'm here, Mael, she said out loud. Because she owed him that much. I'm going to find my own way for now, though, if you don't mind.

Nilla-finally! I'd thought you must be dead. Well, I blasted well do mind, actually. We have things to do. Turn right at the next junction. That's an order, lass. I've been thinking, Nilla said. I've seen what your dead people do to the living people. It looks pretty cruel to me. It looks pretty... unnecessary. If he just wanted to kill them all off, why didn't your pal Teuagh just melt the ice caps or set off all the nukes or whatever? Why raise the dead? It's so messy, so... inefficient. Are you telling me he couldn't think of anything better?

I don't question his ways.

Which just means you don't know. Mael's voice returned a little louder, a little harsher. She had gotten to him, she decided. If only just a little. That was a kind of victory in itself. Ifyou're going to tell me now that you don't believe in the father of clans, I wish you would just save your breath.

It's not like I'm going to need it for anything else. Mael, I need some time to think. Some space. I want you to know, it's not you. It's me. His reply smacked into her ribs hard enough to make her squeak in surprise and pain. Something-something dead had come at her hard and fast. It wasn't Dick: it had arms, arms that wrapped around her waist hard, unfeeling arms that would crush her if she didn't do something.

Nilla did something. Twisting to her side she dropped to the floor like a bag of flour, slipping down through the ring of those crushing arms. At the same time she kicked out with one leg, crushing a kneecap with the heel of her shoe. Unfeeling, the dead thing came at her again, surging through the darkness, enormous and stinking and ragged, torn and ravaged muscles convulsing, striking, descending to smash her to pieces.

Nilla reached up, felt hair, and grabbed. The dead thing swiveled and scratched and struck at the air but Nilla held it away from herself and avoided the worst of its attack. Heaving and grunting she hauled the dead creature toward the doorway, toward the light. She had to be fast and she pushed her muscles to obey her, to give her some kind of coordination as she pulled on the dead thing's blood-matted hair. As she got its head under her armpit. As she heaved one more time and shattered its skull against the doorframe.

The dead thing collapsed like a bag full of meat. Nilla dropped it and stepped into the light, her body screaming at her, every muscle in her arms and back wrenched by the exertion. Then she looked down at the thing she'd killed.

Shar looked back up at her. It was her, it was definitely her. How she had died, Nilla had no clue. It really didn't matter. She had died and come back and Mael had been clever enough to make her one of his puppets. Nilla pressed one knuckle against her upper lip, trying not to vomit. When she stopped shaking she looked at the ceiling. As if he were there, somewhere, in the sky. The way someone else might have looked up to talk to God.

This is it, then. It's all you have to offer. Dead things struggling in the dark. Hurting each other. Fuck it, I'm done. He didn't speak to her again. Maybe he knew better, or maybe she'd switched off whatever part of her brain listened to him. Beyond the doorway stood a stairwell that lead upward. At its top a door opened onto black air. When Nilla's eyes finally adjusted she saw stars. Clouds. The night sky. To her left a pulsing heartbeat, a throbbing pulse of noise. She looked over and saw the spinning blades of a helicopter.

You cant see it but you know its there, you feel its presence. Through the wall I can feel it... life, in the glorious abstract. In the middle of this mornings test run she started vomiting blood and by the time I had her cleaned up and sedated the extrusion should have collapsed but... it didnt. Right through the wall and I knew it somehow, I whispered it to her. Its self-reinforcing now, I think. I smashed all the fetishes and the instruments but... its still there, the sensors show nothing of course but... I can feel it. [Lab Notes, 11/6/04]

He's going to come out of there any second now, Clark promised, but he knew he was wrong. Together with Vikram he stared at the stairwell hatch leading down into the prison. Sergeant Horrocks was supposed to be emerging from that door at any moment, leading what was left of the troops.

It had been seven long minutes since his last call. There had been a lot of noise back then, a lot of shooting and screaming coming up from below. All of that had since stopped. Any second, Clark repeated, and Vikram muttered in acquiescence. Behind them the Pave Low helicopter spun its rotor uselessly. There was only so long that they could wait-fuel for the aircraft was at a premium.

Ah, Bannerman-here he is, Vikram announced, as a human shape appeared in the stairwell door. Nothing to worry about, I- Vikram fell silent for a moment, then let out a terrified shriek. He raised his sidearm and fired three rapid shots into the doorway. The bullets collided with dead flesh and sent the figure there spinning.

That was so totally unnecessary, the shadowy figure said. It was the girl. She stood up and stepped onto the starlit helipad. A bullet hole in her neck oozed crusty powdered blood, dried up so long ago it wasn't even shiny. She prodded the wound with one undead finger.

It was so easy to forget that she wasn't one of the living. That she wasn't exactly what she appeared to be, a helpless, innocent survivor of this horror. Clark had to remind himself from time to time that she was part of the Epidemic, not a victim of it.

What did you do with Sergeant Horrocks? Clark demanded. The girl frowned. Older guy, white hair, three stripes on his arm? He didn't make it. None of them did. I watched them go under, Captain. I would have tried to help but, well, your men were trying to shoot me at the time. If they could have focused on their enemy, well- That's exactly what they were doing. Clark stood up straighter than before and stared at her with his best command face. So. Are you going to eat us now, or did you have something else in mind?

The girl's face soured and she threw him a mock salute. I thought we would get in that helicopter and fly out to that mountain you were so excited about. You know, what we were supposed to do in the first place.

You don't honestly expect me to take you with us, Clark sputtered. I think you need all the help you can get. Listen, Captain-I don't know anything about military tactics or politics or epidemiology or anything. I lost whatever expertise I may have had when I died. But I do know my destiny is up there. I'll walk if I have to, but I'd prefer to catch a lift with you two.

Clark felt a sinus headache coming on. He had no answers. He had no information. His chain of command was broken and his direct superior had turned against humanity. According to every order of warfare that he knew that meant it was time to fall back and call for evac. Yet fate had put him in the position of being the one who had to decide the entire future of the human race.

Oh, hell, he said, sounding prissy even to himself. Mount up already. We've got no time to lose. It was all too true. Their destination, Bolton's Valley, was nearly a hundred miles away even as the crow flew. The pilots assured him they could reach the Epicenter with the fuel onboard but it would be a close thing. Once they had completed their mission they would have to find alternate transport out of the area of operations.

Assuming they survived. Clark kind of doubted they would. As long as they got close enough to the switch, as long as they managed to turn this thing off, that would be enough. He imagined it -the Epicenter-as some kind of science fiction death ray contraption. A big telescoping raygun with fins and flanges and control panels sticking out of a hatch carved into the mountain. He imagined it had two buttons that controlled it, conveniently labeled ON and OFF. He imagined pushing the latter and then going back to Denver, to the Brown Palace, and finally having that juicy, rare steak that fate had stolen away from him. He imagined taking a room upstairs, a room with tasteful wallpaper and gauzy curtains on the windows and a big, soft bed with a white coverlet. He imagined going to sleep for a very long time and then waking up to find that humanity had rebuilt after the dead stopped rising, that while he slept everything had been cleared away, tidied up, made whole again. He imagined that the population of the United States would have replenished itself and that there was no one left who even remembered the Epidemic, that there were no wounds anymore, no physical scars, no emotional traumas. No nightmares.

Except, he knew, that he would still remember. He would remember the face, and the name, of everyone who had died. He would remember them for the rest of his life.

Perhaps it was better if he didn't come back. It is still a lovely world, is it not? Vikram asked, jolting Clark out of his reverie. He hadn't even noticed the helicopter lifting away from the prison. He hadn't realized that they'd already swung way out across the mountains, that they were running fast, about a hundred feet up, following a ridgeline that probably marked the Continental Divide. Maybe an hour had passed and he'd been lost in his own thoughts. So close to the end and he'd wasted all that time.

He looked down, though, and saw trees clothing the rugged sides of the mountains, aspens and firs and loblolly pines. He saw water snaking between the peaks, the stars wavering in the depths of creeks and rivers. Oh, Vikram was so very, very right.

Then he looked over at the girl. She sat very still in her crewseat, buckled in and motionless. Her chest didn't move with breath, her eyes didn't blink. You could tell she was dead, if you paid attention. If you actually looked. She had the waxy skin of a corpse. She had the eyes that didn't really focus anymore, not on anything in particular.

She turned her eyes to look back at him. You think you're going to find a way to end the Epidemic. You know that's probably bullshit though, right? Clark nodded. He couldn't stop looking at the girl. Yes. I also know that it's my job to find out. Because maybe, just maybe I can stop it. At the very least I can perform the final duty of any soldier who watches his country die.

What's that? I can take our communal revenge on whoever did it. Enough. Clark wanted to change the subject. So who told you about the mountain? Clark demanded of her. Who said you were the only one who could go there?

She shrugged and looked out the window. A man named Jason Singletary. He had a gift, a... kind of a power. He was psychic, if you have to hear me say it. Psychic, Clark said. The word came out of his mouth and hovered in the air like a grim little cloud. It sounded a lot like other words he knew now. Like undead, or magic. It sounded like one of the things that had gone wrong with the world.

The pilot broke the silence that followed. We're approaching the site, he said. Should be visible in a few minutes.

Before he'd even finished his sentence fragment the hatch to the cargo compartment started rattling.

"What was that?" Vikram asked, sounding only a little panicked.