Other people started gathering around them, watching. The adults, especially those in their middle thirties or older, pointed and yelled in genuine surprise.

  “No, it’s a truck, I think,” said one. “It’s an actual darn truck! And it’s driving fit to beat the devil.”

  The sound of it rolled ahead of the oncoming lights and reached the watchers on the walls. They all ran to meet the vehicle. Everyone was excited but armed in case this was some new trick by Captain Collins and her Rat Catchers. Benny stood, sword drawn, next to Karen; Alethea had Rainbow Smite ready. A few people leveled shotguns or pistols at the vehicle, which slowed to a skidding, sloppy halt just outside the gates. The passenger door popped open, and a figure stepped out, hands raised.

  “No, it’s me! It’s Gutsy!”

  63

  SAM RODE IN FRONT TO scout the trail, but then he suddenly reined in his horse and raised a clenched fist in the military signal to stop.

  Ledger waited, and then Sam waved him up. They stood in the shadows of some pine trees and looked down the slope to a small group of industrial-looking buildings just off the left-hand side of the road. Both men pulled out their binoculars.

  The moon was so bright that they could easily see that the weeds in one spot along the side of the road had been battered down, leaving a gap about five feet wide. They glanced at each other, and Ledger felt a flare of hope ignite in his chest.

  They tied the horses to the trees and crept down the slope, making maximum use of cover. As they drew close, they saw that the weeds were newly crushed, and that running past them were the unmistakable tire tracks of a quad.

  “This is it,” said Ledger quietly, but with obvious excitement in his voice. “This has to be Site B.”

  They studied the buildings and saw neither cameras nor motion sensors. Everything was still. So they approached the nearest structure, sticking to corner angles to reduce visibility of them from windows.

  The tread marks of the quad’s fat rubber tires led them across the dusty and overgrown parking lot, but they ended, unhelpfully, at an ordinary-looking steel garage door with a few nondescript trucks parked near it. The fiction they sold was that this was some minor factory in the middle of nowhere, and everything was business as usual. At least, that had been the cover story before the dead rose.

  Sam kept watch with the sniper rifle while Ledger tried the big roll-down door and the smaller standard door beside it. Both were sturdily made and locked solid. It wasn’t necessary for either of them to speculate on whether this was merely a front, or that beyond the facade there would be a much more sophisticated entrance, possibly a steel hatch or airlock. Instead, Ledger went to work on the exterior door. Picking locks was something any special ops soldier knew how to do, though this lock was particularly tricky. It took him nearly fifteen minutes to tease the tumblers into the right angles using a set of lock picks he always carried. The door clicked, and both men fanned back as it swung open.

  No shots. No alarms. No movement.

  “A very cliché movie line keeps playing over and over in my head,” murmured Ledger.

  “Oh? Which one?”

  “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  “Ah,” said Sam. “Me too.”

  They grinned at each other and shared a nod.

  They went in, very fast and very savvy. Two soldiers who had done this a thousand times. Fighters who’d survived everything a fractured world could throw at them.

  * * *

  The horses waited with their stoic equine patience as the door swung silently closed behind their riders. They munched grass and dozed beneath the stars. They only stirred and began to whinny when the muffled sounds of gunfire raged from inside the building.

  The animals began to panic when they heard the horrible screams.

  64

  THE GATES WERE OPENED TO allow the Humvee to roll inside. A crowd of people surged around the vehicle, staring at it as if it was something out of a dream. Everyone knew about the little quads, but here was a powerful military vehicle.

  Gutsy no longer wore her hazmat suit, having instructed Sergeant Holly where to stop to pick up the strong disinfectants left outside for just this purpose. The suits were now in a plastic bag in the back, soaking in germ-killing chemicals.

  Karen Peak, Alethea, and Spider reached her first.

  “You promised!” yelled Alethea. “You swore you wouldn’t do anything stupid.”

  “I didn’t,” snapped Gutsy. “But I don’t have time to argue. We have to get this stuff to Morton.”

  She pulled the cooler out of the back. As she did, a lot of hostile eyes flicked to Sergeant Holly. Gutsy could hear the murmurs start and then spread like wildfire.

  “She’s from the base…”

  “… she’s one of them…”

  “… Rat Catcher…”

  “… scientist…”

  “… monster…”

  Gutsy thrust the cooler into Spider’s hands, whipped out her machete, and wheeled on the crowd. “Anyone lays a hand on her, I’ll cut it off and feed it to my dog.”

  That stopped the murmuring and the movement toward where Holly still sat.

  “This woman helped me get stuff we need to fight what’s coming.”

  “She’s a monster,” yelled a big man as he came pushing his way through the crowd. His face was scarlet with fury. “Those people killed my Mary…”

  Alethea shifted into his path and touched his chest with the fat end of Rainbow Smite.

  “Don’t,” she warned.

  The big man glared past her and then down at Alethea. His furious eyes filled with tears. “They killed my Mary,” he said again in a voice that was suddenly small and lost. They were the same words, but they came close to breaking Gutsy’s heart.

  Gutsy reached out and gently pushed the baseball bat down. She looked up at the man, who towered more than a foot over her.

  “Mr. Howard,” she said in a measured voice, “I know how hurt you are. You know that I know. You came to Mama’s memorial. But listen to me now. Please. Things are worse than you know. We aren’t just facing los muertos. Not anymore. Not even just them and the ravagers. There’s something else coming. Something called wild men. A different kind of infected. They’re faster. Smarter. And they are definitely coming here. Soon.” She pointed to the cooler. “The stuff Sergeant Holly helped me bring here is the only thing that might give us a chance. I need you—and everyone—to leave her be. Same with Doctor Morton. Judge later, but right now do what I ask, or everyone will lose… everyone.” She stepped a little closer and lowered her voice, speaking only to him. “Please.”

  A big sob broke in his bull chest and he nodded, turned away, and shambled back into the crowd. Other people put comforting hands on his shoulders. No one else made a move toward Holly.

  Gutsy looked around at the people of her town. Then she took the cooler back from Spider and raced toward the hospital.

  65

  MORTON AND FLORES WERE WAITING for her, already alerted to her dramatic return.

  “Did you get it?” cried Morton. “Tell me you got it.”

  Gutsy set the cooler down on the now-empty autopsy table. Morton struggled to his feet and peered in as Flores removed the top. The doctor nearly fainted.

  He turned to Flores. “You see? I told you she would do it. Remarkable young woman. Truly remarkable.”

  The pharmacist nodded to Gutsy. “He made me get everything set up because he was convinced you’d bring this stuff. I’ve been mixing a nutrient-rich stabilizer. Mostly horse dung, but we have a lot of it.”

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Morton. “The engineered prions will bond to the organic material, and that will allow it to last much longer. Days without refrigeration.”

  “We have people making more of the stabilizer,” said Flores.

  Gutsy glanced dubiously at the cooler. “What good will all that stabilizer do if we only have a little of the Dòmi?”

  “Prions are small,” said Morton, tapping the cooler’s lid with a fingernail, “and there are a lot of them in here. Mixed correctly, we could create a few tons of weaponized Dòmi.”

  “Tons?” Gutsy gasped. “That’s great! We can throw it in batches off the wall once the wild men infect los muertos. If we time it with the way the wind’s blowing, we can—”

  “Are you mad?” cried Morton. “We need to get out of this town as soon as possible. Right now.”

  “But why? We have the Dòmi. You said the wild men will infect or destroy all of the undead, and that Dòmi will stop them.” Gutsy was furious. “That’s why I went to the darn base. What am I missing?”

  “Use your brains, Gabriella,” snapped Morton. “Yes, the Dòmi will work, but we don’t have any kind of delivery system to regulate how we use it. Once Wodewose eliminated the parasites, we would then introduce mass quantities of Dòmi to shut down their aggression. And that’s if it worked as intended. Remember, this project was shelved before we’d done any major field testing. This is theory. Dòmi was never intended to be used in areas with active communities of uninfected people. If the Raggedy Man’s army is infected by the paracide, there could be half a million or more wild men scaling the walls. If we had fifty times as many able fighters as we do now, and each had automatic weapons with an unlimited supply of bullets… we’d still lose.”

  Gutsy stared at him. Stunned. Gutted.

  Into the awful silence, Morton said, “We need to abandon the town. Tonight or first thing in the morning. Do you know if any wild men followed you? Are they already coming here?”

  Gutsy shook her head numbly. “No. We were going so fast. I kept looking back, but I didn’t see any the last few miles.”

  Morton frowned. “Maybe they wandered off. There are plenty of reanimates out there to distract them. Even so, we need to evacuate the town and head for Site B.”

  “Which is where, exactly?” asked Flores. “You said you weren’t sure. Captain Ledger and Mr. Imura could be out on a wild-goose chase.”

  “No,” said Gutsy quickly, “the lab technician who drove me here—Holly—says she knows exactly where it is, and from what she said, it’s one of the spots you told Ledger and Sam about.”

  “Excellent!” Morton cried. “Then we need to evacuate New Alamo and get there. With the materials and equipment in that lab, we can mass-produce Dòmi. Mind you, we’d still need a stabilizer of some kind. Something moist enough for the Dòmi to bond with, but heavy enough to be usefully directed once we come up with a delivery system.”

  Gutsy stood there, staring hard at the doctor. “At the base,” she said slowly, “the staff there were infected by Wodewose that was in the air from the blast. Wouldn’t Dòmi spread, too?”

  “As I said, Gabriella,” said Morton impatiently, “it could spread everywhere in time. We can’t rely on chance. Wind patterns are unpredictable. Bioweapons, and event counteragents, have to be directed.”

  Gutsy stabbed a finger toward the west. “Then we need to figure something out. I saw a whole swarm of los muertos being infected by wild men. That swarm could be on its way here right now. Thousands of wild men.”

  Morton paled. “Save my soul! Listen to me: the Dòmi will work, but we don’t want to be around when the wild men collide with the Night Army. Dòmi is a superquick-onset counteragent. The original plan had been to lure swarms of reanimates into remote areas and then deliver the paracide, via airburst. That would take over the reanimate hosts, and by the time the wild men found their way to any populated area, the more extreme symptoms—the shrieking and murderous rage—would have worn off. The older reanimates would simply collapse, and the new ones would likely starve to death. In either case, that plan won’t work if this town becomes ground zero for the Dòmi release. We’d be caught between the monsters. New Alamo is built to defend against the unthinking dead, and it can barely do that. The wild men would overrun our defenses and sweep through the town.”

  “What choice do we have, though?” Flores begged. “The wild men are bringing Wodewose with them. Believe me when I say that we do not want to be here when that happens.”

  “Site B is our fallback,” said Morton.

  “Okay, okay,” said Flores, “but what if Captain Collins is still at Site B? She’ll never let us in.”

  “Captain Ledger and Sam Imura might already be there,” said Gutsy. “They might have gotten in and stopped her.”

  “Sure, and the wild men will all suddenly become our friends and we’ll sit around and sing ‘Kumbaya,’ ” mocked Morton. “You’re insane, girl.”

  “The world’s insane,” she replied. “At least we have hope.”

  66

  GUTSY RAN BACK TO THE gate and found the Chess Players there, grilling Holly. Alethea and Spider seemed to be referees, but the mood of the crowd had turned ugly again.

  “Stop it,” snapped Gutsy, stepping between Holly and the others. She pointed the way she’d come. “We don’t have time for this crap. The Night Army is coming, and so are the wild men. We’re about to get crushed between them. We have to get ready to fight.” Before anyone could speak, she added, “And we need to think about going back to the base.”

  “Back?” said Karen. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said before? There are other vehicles back there.” She thumped the Humvee’s hood. “More trucks like this one. All sorts of stuff.”

  “And weapons,” added Holly, trying to sell her own usefulness. “We have more guns than you’ll ever need—small arms, automatic rifles, rocket launchers, grenades, even flame throwers. We have a whole stock of weapons. Probably a couple million rounds of ammunition, too. All of it’s in the armory, which is right next to the garage.”

  Alethea said, “And how exactly do we get all that stuff without catching every disease known to man?”

  “We have more hazmat suits at the hospital.”

  “Five more,” said a nurse in the crowd. “Six, including that one you stole.”

  “Borrowed,” Gutsy corrected. “And Holly has one. Which means six people can go with her back to the base and bring back seven vehicles, and a lot of weapons.”

  “There are hazmat suits at the base, too,” said Holly. “In the garage. They were for people coming into the facility during a biohazard lockdown. They won’t be contaminated.”

  That kicked off a buzz of excited conversation, during which Karen, the Chess Players, and Gutsy’s friends closed around her.

  “Even with a lot of guns,” said Karen quietly, “we can’t stop all of those wild men and shamblers.”

  Gutsy prompted Holly to explain where Site B was. Then Gutsy said, “We have to evacuate, and we should do it before those things get here. Like, now. Everyone should pack only what they can carry, and we can head right out. We need to do it on foot, because it’ll take too long for us to shuttle with cars and trucks. I don’t think we’ll be able to get a whole fleet back here in time. So, the farther we are from town, the better. We can set rally points so the cars can find us. Then they can take the old and sick people, and little kids, while the rest of keep walking. It’s about twelve miles, so we can get to Site B a couple hours after midnight.”

  “The east gate is the best exit,” said Ford. “We can get out there and then turn north along the highway.”

  “Good,” Chong said, “but what happens if the Raggedy Man has some ravager spies and sees us leave?”

  “What about the tunnel?” asked Spider. “It comes out at the car wash, and that’s pretty far from town. There’s a lot of supplies down there, too, so if people brought wheelbarrows and carts with them, they could load up as they leave.”

  “I like it,” said Gutsy.

  “We need to set those rally points,” said Urrea, and he named several places where people could gather that would give them easy access to either the east gate or the hospital. Several others joined the discussion to work out details.

  She heard Benny mutter, “This is the world’s most insane plan.” But then he stepped up and said, very loudly, “This is how we stay alive. Come on—let’s move.”

  “Who are you to tell us what to do?” demanded one of the townswomen, Mrs. Gray, who ran the feed store. “You’re not even from here.”

  “Well, lady,” said Benny, “I’m here now. And I sure as heck don’t want to die here. So, if you have a better plan to stop about a million infected from turning New Alamo into a breakfast buffet, let’s hear it.”

  There was silence.

  “Didn’t think so.”

  Mr. Urrea and Mr. Ford stepped up and stood on either side of Gutsy. Karen Peak joined them and, surprisingly, so did the big man, Mr. Howard. That seemed to break the resistance.

  Within minutes the plan was in motion. Spider, who was the fastest runner, zoomed off to the hospital to fetch the hazmat suits. By the time he returned, the Chess Players had located five adults willing to head to the base and drive vehicles back. Everyone suited up and the Humvee left at top speed, with half the town on the walls watching in a grave silence.

  As soon as the truck vanished into the dusty distance, Karen took charge of the packing for the planned exodus.

  Benny and Chong, accompanied by the armored hound Grimm, went to the hospital to start collecting medical equipment, and Spider hurried back to the orphanage to warn the Cuddlys and make sure the other kids packed.

  That left Gutsy and Alethea momentarily alone.

  “Whew,” said Alethea, wrinkling her nose.

  “What?”

  “Girl, you stink.”

  “Gosh, thanks,” Gutsy said. “Maybe I’ll take a long soak with bath balm and get my nails done. Take the rest of the day off and read a book.”

  “Hey,” said Alethea, adjusting her tiara, “just because it’s the end of the world doesn’t mean there isn’t such a thing as self-care and personal hygiene.”