Then the mass of killers slammed forward so hard that half a dozen crates seemed to dance away from the impact. They toppled down, exploding, sending cans of peas and corn and Spam flying everywhere. The dogs were barking louder, but now they were challenging the monsters who were reaching through the gaps with furious hands. Gutsy scooped up several cans and hurled them like baseballs, hitting faces, breaking fingers, but not stopping the attack. Pain meant nothing to these things. She kept up the barrage, though. When she risked a glance over her shoulder, Benny and the others were still a hundred yards away.

  The hinges burst from the wall in showers of flying screws and concrete dust. The wall of boxes was halfway down now, and the doors were crumbling into useless splinters. One of the maniacs thrust his head and shoulders through a gap, biting at the air in Gutsy’s direction. She snatched up a big can of pork and beans and slammed it down on the thing’s head, once, twice. The creature sagged down, plugging the biggest hole. But it thrashed and twitched—not from its own power, but because the others were tearing at it, ripping at one of their own, destroying what was between them and living flesh.

  The creature abruptly vanished, sucked back out of the hole and instantly replaced by the head, shoulders, and reaching arm of a female soldier whose face was a mass of recent burns. She saw Gutsy and her face, already crazy, went madder still. There was something in her eyes. It was a light that seemed to glow with an insanity that ran miles deep. Gutsy had never seen anything like this. This wasn’t merely hunger but a bottomless need to hurt.

  The woman hissed like a snake and then began pulling herself through the hole before Gutsy could shake off her shock.

  “Gutsy, get back,” Ledger bellowed as he swung his sword at the woman. The reaching hands grabbed nothing and fell like dead birds to the floor. The woman kept thrusting forward with her stumps, though—a sight straight out of a nightmare. Her face showed no flicker of awareness of her own mutilation.

  Ledger grabbed the corner of one of the remaining crates and tried to shove it against the opening, but his leg suddenly buckled. He cried out and fell. The handless woman squirmed the rest of the way through the hole as hands behind her shoved the way clear for more of the killers.

  Gutsy grabbed Ledger and pulled him back. The old soldier groaned as fresh blood poured from his injured thigh. Grimm and Sombra kept lunging forward, biting the wriggling infected, tearing at them.

  “Down,” bellowed a voice, and suddenly Benny was there, pushing past Gutsy and stabbing with his sword. Spider was right beside him, thrusting the end of his bo. Karen and Sunny-Day Ray crowded past, and soon there was a small army of people battling the killers.

  Spider flinched at the sound of the maniacs’ bizarre howling. “What are they?”

  “They’re infected,” was all Ledger could manage.

  There was a huge crack, and the doors gave way completely as a dozen of the monsters poured in. They beat at one another, scrambled past the splintered wreckage of the double doors, climbed over the broken crates, and hurled themselves at the defenders in the hallway.

  Ten seconds ago, that would have been a slaughter.

  Now the creatures were met with swords and staves, shovels and pickaxes. And then there was another crack. Louder and crisper than when the doors fell, and the closest infected to Gutsy pitched backward, his head seeming to disintegrate in a dreadful cloud of red.

  “Down!” roared a voice, and everyone dropped or huddled to the sides of the corridor as Sam came walking slowly up the hallway. He had a heavy assault rifle in his hands, the stock against his hip, and although he did not appear to pause or aim, every shot killed one of the infected. He fired, fired, fired.

  Gutsy did not know how long the fight lasted. Half a minute? A hundred years? All she knew was that the tide turned against the mad killers, and one by one, they fell. The gunshots and the screams faded until there was no sound at all except the echoes that fled away down the corridor or escaped into the morning sunlight beyond the shattered doors.

  “God…,” breathed Gutsy.

  “About damn time,” said Ledger. Then he slid down the wall of crates and sat in a pool of his own blood. His smile never quite left his face, even when his eyes rolled up white and he fell over sideways.

  Interlude Five Brother Mercy and Sister Sorrow

  FOUR YEARS AGO

  THE STRIKE TEAMS HIT AGAIN and again and again.

  Brother Mercy discovered that he had a talent for planning these raids. He identified those reapers who were best at scouting, gathering intelligence, and fighting. He hand-picked a few to infiltrate the settlements—going in wearing wigs or hats to hide their tattoos and dressing in the ragged clothes of survivors. They would become part of the community while sending information back to Brother Mercy.

  He was still not yet sixteen and was already one of the Night Church’s most effective strike team leaders. Mother Rose mentioned him in her sermons. Brother Peter praised him to the other senior staff. His own reapers bragged that they followed his knife. Saint John told him that he was beloved of Lord Thanatos, all praise to his darkness. It made him feel strong and accepted and useful. But it wasn’t what made him wake up with a smile on his lips. It wasn’t what lifted his heart over and over all day long.

  No. That was her.

  Sister Sorrow—Leafy—had been assigned to his strike team. He made her his lieutenant, though in truth he shared leadership with her. She was every bit as sharp as he was, and every bit as devious. Together they purified settlement after settlement, sending hundreds of sinners into the darkness.

  He was Mercy. She was Sorrow.

  He was in no way merciful.

  She felt no flicker of sorrow.

  They were in love, and the world opened its red mouths to shout in a collective chorus of darkness.

  PART TEN THE ROAD HOME

  When the world says, “Give up,”Hope whispers, “Try it one more time.”

  —ANONYMOUS

  40

  A CITY SEEMED TO RISE like magic out of the earth, an illusion created by the quad rising to the crest of a rolling hill. And Lilah saw a road splitting off from the main highway that would take them there.

  “Hold on,” she yelled, and then made a sharp turn. The wheels skidded with a shriek, but then caught and the machine shot forward. The side road was cracked and filled with weeds, but they were trampled down, the broken stalks pointing back toward the highway. Lilah figured a swarm had come from the direction of the town, which meant—she hoped—that there were no zoms left there. It was a crazy gamble, but she needed to find something to give them an advantage again. The screaming zoms were still following, and a couple of them were actually gaining on them. Maybe the maze of buildings would offer protection or concealment. Anything was better than a losing race on the open road.

  Nix clung to Lilah with small, icy hands.

  The city was a battered ruin, with many three- and four-story buildings burned to blackened shells long ago, and now choked with dense cloaks of ivy and kudzu. There was a sign that read WELCOME TO, but the rest was gone, scoured away by fifteen years of wind and rain.

  Once inside the town, Lilah made a series of random turns, following nameless streets, careful not to cross her own trail for fear of running into the pack of killers. She passed failed barricades and makeshift shelters that were torn open and empty.

  “I don’t see them,” said Nix, looking behind them. “I think we—”

  Lilah made another turn and then slammed on the brakes. The quad’s wheels screamed in protest, sending plumes of rubber smoke up behind them as the machine and its trailer began to slew sideways.

  Ahead of them, filling this new street, were zoms.

  Hundreds of them.

  They all turned toward the growl and shriek of the quad. Many of them were wrapped head to toe in kudzu, proof they had been standing there for years. As one they opened their mouths, and a great moan of sudden hunger bellowed outward from their dusty throats. The dead creatures surged forward, tearing at the vines that held them. Some fell as fragile bones broke from the force of their own effort to move after so long. Others collapsed beneath the mass of the dead behind them.

  “Back, back, back,” cried Nix, but Lilah was already trying to reverse her course, to drive in a tight circle the way they’d come. There were so many zoms, though, and they were so close. The front rank was only thirty feet away. Several of them broke free of the weeds and stumbled forward, reaching with leathery hands. Nix had her gun in her hand, her finger curling around the trigger, but she hesitated. There were so many of them, and the runners had to be inside the city already. There wasn’t enough ammunition. Nowhere near enough.

  Then the quad bucked and seemed to leap forward; the jolt caused Nix to clutch her hand in surprise, and her finger jerked on the trigger. The gun bucked in her hand, firing a shot that punched through the shoulder of one of the zoms, doing no harm—but worse, the jolt made her lose her grip on the weapon. It fell, bouncing hard enough on the asphalt to kick up sparks, and skittered away.

  “My gun!” she cried, but Lilah was already moving too fast.

  The quad burned along the blacktop toward the street they’d just turned off, but both girls screeched in horror as they saw the pack of running killers pelting toward them. Lilah jerked the wheel and took the right-hand street, giving the machine all the gas it could take. The mass of vine-covered zoms flooded out into the intersection seconds ahead of the runners. Nix twisted to look back, expecting to see all of them, fast and slow, chasing behind.

  But that wasn’t what she saw.

  She pounded on Lilah’s shoulder. “Stop… stop for a sec. Look!”

  Lilah slowed the machine and turned. And gaped.

  A full block behind them was a sight that made absolutely no sense to either of them.

  The zoms were fighting each other.

  It was like watching a riot. The fast ones seemed to have totally forgotten about the two teenage girls on the quad, and were instead hurling themselves at the mass of shuffling dead. Spitting and biting, all the time howling loud enough to scare legions of pigeons and grackles from the empty windows of the burned buildings.

  Slow zoms reeled away from their attackers, twitching and convulsing. Some fell; others staggered clumsily into other zoms, or walked into dead cars and brick walls.

  “What… ?” Lilah began.

  “I don’t…,” said Nix, but that was as far as she could get. Whatever this was, it was beyond the experience or understanding of either of them. But it was a chance.

  Nix used the side of her fist to lightly hammer on Lilah’s back. “Go, go.”

  They left the small city, regained the highway, and headed west at high speed.

  41

  THEY DROVE AND DROVE.

  When the tank ran low on gas, they stopped and filled it quickly and nervously. When something moved toward them in the tall grass, they turned in terror, expecting it to be the fast monsters.

  The stalks parted and a cow came ambling onto the road, trailed by a calf. The girls began to laugh with the release of the terrible tension, but it died in their throats. The calf had four eyes and bleated like a screaming child. The mother turned, and they saw that her flanks were covered with fleshy nodules that looked like stubby fingers. Lilah drew her pistol and aimed it at the animals, but Nix touched her arm and shook her head.

  The cow and calf, deformed and hideous, bent their heads and began munching the grass. Sickened and scared, Nix and Lilah finished refueling.

  Before they mounted the quad, Nix tried the satellite phone. She got static, as if the whole world was dead.

  “Nothing?” asked Lilah as she screwed on the gas cap.

  “No.”

  They stood for a moment, looking at the mutated animals. A soft, cool wind blew out of the north and stirred the grass. In the distance were the blackened bones of a city whose name they didn’t know. The cow and her baby munched noisily.

  “I thought it would be different out here,” said Nix softly.

  Lilah wiped her hands on her thighs. “Different than what?”

  “Different than home. Back west there were the reapers and Charlie Pink-eye and Preacher Jack. But we beat all of them, and we paid so much to win.”

  The Lost Girl nodded.

  Nix gave a sour laugh and shook her head. “I thought that after war there was peace. Like… a real peace. Something that would last. That’s what I was hoping for. How stupid am I?”

  She turned away and leaned heavily on the quad, head hanging low. Lilah came over and put a hand on Nix’s shoulder; then, after a moment, she laid her cheek on her friend’s head.

  “No,” she said in her hoarse whisper of a voice, “it’s not stupid. Hope is what we have left.”

  Nix straightened, and Lilah stepped back. “Hope? What good is that?”

  Lilah pointed to the west. “After my sister and George both died, I lived in a cave for five years. Alone. Everyone I ever loved was dead. Murdered. It was just me and my books and the people I hunted and killed. The zoms and the bounty hunters. That was my world. Hope was all I had.” She gave a ghost of a smile. “And you know what hope did?”

  Nix said nothing.

  “Hope sent me you and Benny. You found me. You fought beside me. Then you invited me back to your town. To your homes. That’s where I met Chong. That’s when I fell in love. Hope proved that the world wasn’t just death and hiding and pain and all that bad stuff. Hope saved me.” She slapped the metal handlebar. A sharp, hard sound. “Hope isn’t stupid, Nix. Hope is the best weapon we have.”

  She turned and climbed into the quad’s saddle. “We’re wasting time. Let’s go.”

  Nix lingered a moment, staring at Lilah. Then she climbed on behind her, and they drove west as the shadows chased them, mile after mile.

  Interlude Six The Raggedy Man

  TWO YEARS AGO

  “WHO ARE WE GOING TO meet?” asked Brother Mercy.

  He and Sister Sorrow sat on either side of Saint John on the bench seat of the old-fashioned wagon. It was pulled by four farm horses whose harnesses were hung with red tassels dipped in the chemicals that kept the gray people from attacking. A large expeditionary force of reapers accompanied them, some riding far ahead on quads, two hundred more marching in lines a few miles behind.

  “I told you already,” said Saint John.

  “All you said was that he was a prophet of Lord Thanatos—all praise to his darkness.”

  “And so he is. What else did I tell you?”

  “That he calls himself the Raggedy Man,” said Sister Sorrow.

  “He has accepted that nickname,” said the saint. “It was first used in a pejorative way by unenlightened sinners.”

  “Why?” asked both of the young reapers at the same time.

  Saint John shrugged. “You’ll understand when you meet him.”

  They were deep in Ohio, moving through ruined and burned cities. Many tall buildings had bowed to the ground during the last days of man’s failed dominion over the earth. Many thousands of the holy gray people moved like ghosts through the ruins or stood watching the reapers pass with unreadable eyes, their mouths moving as if chewing the memory of meat.

  “Who is the Raggedy Man?” asked Sister Sorrow. “All I’ve heard are rumors and some tall tales.”

  “And what have you heard, my dear?”

  She hesitated. “That he was the first of the gray people.”

  “This is truth. What else?”

  “That he can speak to them,” she said. “That they listen to him.”

  “Also true. And… ?”

  “That he cannot die.”

  The saint’s eyes looked thoughtful. “When the dead were called to rise to cleanse the earth and usher the sinners into the blessed darkness, it began with a single man—one whose kiss was enough to begin the great change.”

  In the world of the reapers, a “kiss” was what they called a bite.

  Saint John said, “He is not like any of the children of Thanatos—all praise to his darkness—you have ever seen. He can speak, and he is eloquent in his understanding of god’s purpose. He can command them. What we do with dog whistles and much effort, he does with a whispered word. With a thought.”

  Brother Mercy gaped at him. “Really?”

  “Really,” said Saint John, and gave one of his rare smiles of genuine happiness.

  PART ELEVEN NEW ALAMO

  From error to error, one discovers the entire truth.

  —SIGMUND FREUD

  42

  DR. MAX MORTON SAT IN A wheelchair and scowled at Manny Flores in a way that made it clear he thought the pharmacist was doing everything wrong. Flores ignored the dirty looks. He was used to them, having worked at the hospital for years.

  They were in the small morgue in a remote wing of the hospital, rooms kept cold by noisy old construction-site generators, which were among the few machines that still worked in New Alamo. A stainless-steel autopsy table was positioned under lights that also ran on the generator.

  Gutsy, Alethea, and Spider stood in a cluster with Benny and Chong in one corner of the morgue. Sam stood silent as a tree against a wall, arms folded, face without expression. Karen and the Chess Players were seated on the only chairs in the room.

  Flores stood over the corpse on the table. The body had been stripped down to boxer shorts and lay pale on the cold steel.

  “Here’s what we know,” said Flores. “This man was a soldier at the base. His uniform was damaged but otherwise new and in good shape, and he still wore dog tags. As you can see, he was badly burned, but there’s no evidence that the explosion and fire Gutsy saw at the base is what killed him. Mr. Imura’s bullet clearly ended him for good.”