There were no other gunshots. Just shouting now.

Desperation. Panic.

"What the f.u.c.k? What the f.u.c.k? What the f.u.c.k?" he growled as he hitched along, rifle already tucked into his shoulder, his head scanning stiffly this way and that, looking for a sign of what the h.e.l.l had just happened. Someone ran by on the other side of the vehicles. Doors opened, more of the group stepping out to see what had happened.

Someone yelled: "Mike! Mike, stop!"

Harper sprinted the last few vehicle lengths. He could see two others gathered around the back end of the next-to-last LMTV, and he didn't like the way they looked. Like they were taking cover behind the tailgate. Just barely peeking around the corner.

Harper didn't stop. He moved around the corner, saw Julia, saw Mike, felt a sudden gush of relief that they were both alive. Then a tightness in his chest as he pieced together what he saw. Tightness like the sudden intake of breath before you shout.

They stood at the last LMTV in the column. Julia, directly in front of the vehicle, right in the middle of the s.p.a.ce between its grill and the tailgate of the next one. Mike off to the side, near the driver's side door, which hung open. Julia held her rifle into her shoulder, but the barrel held low, as though she felt threatened but wasn't sure what to do. Mike held his rifle as well, facing Julia, but he didn't threaten her with it.

He held it inverted, one hand stretched out to touch the trigger, the other holding the barrel directly under his chin.

This isn't happening, Harper thought. This is a nightmare.

"Mike," Julia said tightly, her feet moving about as though she couldn't decide whether to move towards the man or away from him. "Put the gun down! Put it down and talk to me!"

Mike closed his eyes. "No...no...no going back now."

Already one gunshot. Who fired the shot?

Harper's eyes tracked to the open driver's side door. This was the LMTV Torri and Mike always drove. The driver's door hanging open. A single bra.s.s sh.e.l.l casing, glittering on the pavement. Blood on the pa.s.senger-side window.

"Oh, f.u.c.k..." Harper choked. "Mike..."

Mike shook his head vehemently, raising his voice above Julia and Harper's. "It's done. It's f.u.c.king done." He sobbed, a wretched, garbled sound. "Oh my G.o.d, I'm so sorry...so sorry..."

Harper couldn't think straight. "Mike! We need to see Torri! We need to see if she's alright!"

Mike looked at him like he was a stranger. "She's dead!" he screamed at them. "I f.u.c.king shot her in the head!" He glanced towards the cab of the LMTV, like he feared she might be alive, then his face contorted and he looked away. "I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it."

Harper's voice cracked. "Mike, just stop! Stop what you're f.u.c.king doing and put the gun down! Stop pointing that thing at yourself!"

Julia was suddenly silent, just standing there, the barrel of her rifle raised just slightly now.

Mike didn't seem to notice. He sobbed several times, the whole frame of his body melting towards the ground, gummy-looking spittle frothing at the corners of his mouth and flying off as he wept violently. Harper and Julia exchanged a micro-second glance, and in their looks it was like they already knew.

Mike suddenly stood up straighter, his face blank, though still streaked with tears and snot and spit. His voice was a mumble. "I'm sorry, Harper. I couldn't let her live in this world. We...we weren't meant for this." Bleary eyes tracked back to the cab of the LMTV. "She was so beautiful...but she was dying inside. We both were. All the killing. No peace. Never any peace. Always afraid. We weren't meant for this." He smiled a ghastly smile full of fear and hatred. "There's no other way out for us. No other way."

Harper shook his head, reached out his hand. "Mike..."

"Sorry." He opened his mouth and stuck the barrel of the rifle in. Eyes went skyward. The same pleading look from earlier. Everyone shouting now. Trying to break through to him in that last second. But he pulled the trigger anyways, and his mouth seemed to strobe like lightening came out of it, and he crumpled, trailing gunsmoke and blood from his nose.

There was a collective cry, and then stunned silence.

No one moved to him, or to the LMTV where Torri lay dead. Not immediately, anyway. Somehow there wasn't a question in any of their minds. As though death were a given. An unstoppable force that could not be resisted. As though the simple act of checking the two bodies for a pulse would be a useless waste of hope.

Julia didn't move from her spot, but she knelt down, her rifle cradled in her arms and she seemed bent over it, hair hanging in front of her face so that Harper couldn't see her. He found that his hands didn't know what to do and they flew about his person, raising his rifle, reaching into his pockets, touching his head, wiping his palm across his face like it was something he could wash away.

He could find nothing to say that made any sense. Just swore up and down. Like each swear was a puff of steam, bleeding off pressure. He paced back and forth between the two LMTVs, three steps between them, then spin and three steps again. Back and forth.

Eventually, he broke the pattern. By now the entire group had gathered around. They wailed. They wept. They asked questions, because they had not seen for themselves. The answers were shouted back, and then the askers wept as well. Or simply stared down at the bodies with that blank face that was becoming more common than any expression of grief. That stare that didn't see. Just internalized everything. Put it away some place where it wouldn't bother them. Like burying nuclear waste. Out of sight, out of mind. Deal with the toxicity of it later.

Mental stability on credit.

Ridiculous. Ridiculous. All so f.u.c.kin' ridiculous.

"Who the f.u.c.k does that?" Harper suddenly shouted. He pointed to the body. "Who does that?"

Julia stood, eyes red, face splotchy and wet. Wiped snot on her hand. She looked at him and in Harper's mind she thought that it was his fault. That he should not have been so hard on Mike after the breakdown earlier that day. That he was the reason that Mike had done this.

Or maybe she wasn't thinking that.

Maybe it was Harper's own guilty conscience.

"s.h.i.tfire," he murmured. "f.u.c.k me."

He slapped his rifle unceremoniously down on the b.u.mper of the LMTV and stalked around the front of it to the driver's side door. Hated what he was going to do. Hated to do it. Hated that no one else could bring themselves to do it, but somebody had to and it might as well be him. Might as well be the "man in charge," if you believed that horses.h.i.t.

Might as well be the man whose fault it was.

He yanked himself up into the cab, found her body lying sideways across the center seat. Blood dripping on the pa.s.senger window. White chunks visible even in the darkness. A hole in her left cheek, just below her eye. Powder burns all around it. The eye nearly popped out of socket from the pressure. It glared at him, blatant and unblinking.

A single sob escaped him. He gagged. Then swallowed hard and closed his eyes.

It's nothing. It's nothing. Just another sack of flesh. Not a person any more. Just rotting flesh. Gotta get it out of my vehicle. It doesn't mean anything anymore. Just an object. Like a broken machine that'll never be fixed.

He opened his eyes again. Refused to look at her. He grabbed her by the legs and pulled her towards the edge of the seat, then stepped down to the ground and hoisted her onto his shoulders. Then he walked. He walked off to the edge of the parking lot where the pavement met the overgrowth, nature reaching out to consume it all.

He left her there in the tall weeds. Then he returned for the other one-couldn't think of them as people any more, couldn't think about their names, their personalities, their faces. Just whitewashed it all. Julia helped carry him by the legs. They laid him next to the wife he'd killed. Didn't know if that was appropriate. But didn't know what else to do.

The others talked about burial.

Harper checked his watch, knew he would not sleep for the rest of the night.

The others gathered around the bodies by cold, white lantern light. Tried to make sense of it. Some need to meet death with ceremony, like they'd planned it all along. Like they were prepared. Someone found a shovel and started digging.

Harper escaped them. He took his rifle with him, and he walked and walked through the complex, not really afraid of what might be there anymore. Inoculated to it for the time being. He walked until he found a quiet spot between two buildings where he could no longer hear the sound of the shovel stabbing into the dirt, and he knelt there and let out what he could not let the others see.

CHAPTER 26: ESCAPE.

Lee stood over himself. Knew that it was some sickly fever dream. His crumpled form on the landing of the stairs, curled up into a ball. His consciousness hovering there over his body, like it had seeped out of him and floated up to hang there in the air. He tried to wake himself because the infected were coming up the stairs, but his shouts were silent soughs of wind, and then the infected fell upon his body.

He woke up in a panic, scrambling for his rifle, and almost pulled off a shot before reality pierced the haze of sleep enough for him to realize that he was still alone in the stairwell. From his position he could still see the front door of the shop that he was inside, and he could see that the barred and locked doors and windows still stood intact.

And it was still dark out.

Early morning, or midnight, or ten minutes after he'd fallen asleep, he had no idea.

The panic subsided quicker than Lee thought possible, like a faulty engine that will roar to life and then immediately stall out. He felt the drowsiness sweep over him again. He forced himself to take another bite of the candy bar, another swig of water, before it overcame him and he fell back asleep.

He opened his eyes, thinking, I'm still dreaming.

It was light out. Blazing, hot, midday light.

Just the presence of the light sent a shock of fear through him that he couldn't explain for a moment, but as he gathered himself and stood on the steps, he realized what it was. The daylight meant the infected would be out. They would be out and hunting and the chances of his safe escape from this town had suddenly been greatly diminished.

Deuce. Gotta get Deuce.

He stumbled down the stairs. His feet and limbs felt like a scarecrow's: just clothing stuffed with straw. Clumsy and without sensation. The rifle dangled from the sling around his chest and shoulders, and he didn't even bother to take hold of it. He made his way to the front door, checked both ways and didn't see any infected.

Gotta get Deuce.

Hope he's okay.

He unlocked the door. Stepped out into the street.

The daylight was blinding. Everything seemed washed out for a moment. He squinted against it, tried to look both ways down the street again, but then gave up and simply walked out, not really caring about it anymore. Just feeling a welling sense of dread as he wondered about the dog he'd left alone on the roof.

Into the shop across the street.

Noting that Shumate's and Aaron's bodies were gone.

Not even blood on the sidewalk to mark where they'd been.

Odd.

He went up the stairs inside the antique shop. Into the upper level. To the ladder that accessed the roof. The hatch at the top was ripped from its hinges. Daylight poured in.

"Oh no," Lee whispered. "No, no, no..."

He climbed. Into the daylight. Like swimming to the surface of a dark ocean. On the roof, the sunshine felt hot on his skin, like a burning fever. He looked around the roof, but Deuce wasn't there. There was nothing on the roof accept for...in the corner...

He walked over to it, unsteady, chest hitching as he knew what it was.

A patch of blood, dried dark brown in the sun. Bits of tawny fur still clinging to it.

"Deuce," Lee whimpered. "Deuce, I'm sorry."

"You did it again," someone said from behind him.

Lee turned and found Angela there, standing on the roof. She stood in the oversized OD Green jacket he'd given her, hands outstretched and covered in sticky blood. Her eyes were sad and forlorn and she shook her head slowly, her blonde hair swaying slightly.

Lee found tears in his eyes. Shame for them. Shame for leaving Deuce on the roof. "I didn't mean to...I just...I just..."

Angela's eyes were downcast.

Somehow, her disapproval crushed him, leveled him, brought him to his knees. He wept bitterly and tried to think of something to say to justify himself, to prove to her that he had not failed, that he was still strong, that he was still worth something. But he had nothing.

Angela spoke quietly, voice full of grief and betrayal. "Everyone you know dies, Lee. All your friends, and everyone you come into contact with, they all end up dead. Because you fail them, every time. Because you're just not strong enough. Because you're cursed."

The force of his own sobbing awoke him. The tears on his face were ice-cold. His mouth felt gummy from them. His nose running. He lay there awake for a few moments, trying to wait for the overpowering sensation of the dream to leave, but it clung stubbornly to him.

He was alone in the dark.

He sat up, swallowing hard, gathering up all those emotions that had spilled out of him while his conscious mind wasn't looking, and he stuffed them back down as best he could, though he could not clean the traces of them. Still felt it in the tightness of his throat. The hollow sensation in his chest.

Put them away. Save them for a time that matters.

Save them for a time when your life is not in danger.

No matter whether the dream was nonsensical or not, he couldn't leave Deuce up on that roof any longer. It was still dark, and it made sense to move the dog before daylight. Daylight would only increase their danger. And as far as his body went, he felt a fraction more stable after sleeping for...however long he'd slept. The headache was still there, his body still shivered with fever and ached to the touch, but it seemed to have lost its edge, and the exhaustion was not so unavoidable now. He felt somewhat awake, or at least able to sustain himself for a little while longer.

He finished the candy bar and the bottle of water. Then he stood slowly. Fought off a bout of lightheadedness. He leaned against the banister in the stairs and brought the rifle up in his grip. Pulled the mag out and checked its weight with an experienced hand. Clicked it back into the mag well and checked the chamber to make sure he was loaded.

"Good to go," he muttered.

He moved down the stairs, shoulder still against the wall, sliding along the whole way down. He reached the bottom and moved to the door, just like he had in his dream, only now it was dark outside. Streets were empty. So he unlocked the door and moved on.

He feared the bodies of Shumate and Aaron would be gone, but they lay where he left them. The puddles of blood had grown stagnant. No longer glistening, but glazed over. The bodies were cold and blue-looking. The flesh sagged on them like it was slowly liquefying.

He found his way around the interior of the antique shop, stumbling into old furniture and hoping that there was not an infected hiding somewhere inside, having been split up with its horde and decided to bed down amidst all these old wooden memories.

Into the splintered, broken door. Up the staircase. The cavernous storage s.p.a.ce with very little stored in it. The ladder leading to the roof. The hatch still closed, just like he'd left it. And behind that hatch, a quiet whimper and a snuffle from a canine snout pressed against the cracks, smelling for who ascended that ladder.

Lee's heart beat hard with relief, the force of which was surprising.

He climbed the ladder and pushed open the hatch. Two paws draped over the edge and the long, lupine snout poking over the edge, sniffing and chuffing and licking in the panicked way that a dog does when they realize that you did not leave them forever. He put his arm around the dog's neck, thought for a brief moment that Deuce might pull away from such aggressive affection, but the mutt just let Lee grab him up tight, buried his face in Lee's chest, tail wagging.

"I got you, buddy," Lee almost choked on the words. Lee put his arm around the dog's chest. "Let's get the f.u.c.k out of here."

He hefted the dog up and worked his way down the ladder. He moved slowly, and Deuce seemed to understand the level of his exhaustion, and didn't squirm around or fight. It took him almost a full minute to get down the ladder again. He had to stop and rest often, and by the time his battered old boots. .h.i.t the ground, an oily sheen of sweat had broken out across his forehead and the nausea had returned.

He stopped there, leaning on the ladder. Deuce threaded the s.p.a.ce between his legs, whined at the staircase, then looked up at him, plaintively. Lee looked towards the stairs himself, wondering if the dog's vocalization meant there were infected nearby, but Deuce remained quiet. Lee caught his breath and let the sweat dry from his brow before moving on.

Deuce stayed with him as he made his way down the stairs, every joint in his body seeming to have aged thirty years in the past day. His hand held the banister and slid along, clutching it as he limped down to the next step, eyes squinted against invading lightheadedness like you would squint against the sun. Deuce took the stairs just as slow, looking up at Lee with what seemed like concern.

"I'm doin' okay," Lee mumbled to the dog at his side. "I got pills and a candy bar. I'm livin' the high life."