“Just trying to figure out how those nonmilitary folks we saw at the school got turned into ravagers,” said Ledger. “If that’s what they were. I checked them again, and neither had bite marks of any kind.”

  “They could have died some other way,” said Gutsy. “Everyone who dies—”

  “—comes back as a zombie, yes. We all know that. But whoever they are, they must have died very recently. There was absolutely no sign of decay.”

  Gutsy thought about it. “Maybe they were from one of the little camps out in the Broken Lands. Before the ravagers began attacking everyone in the area, there were a whole bunch of settlements. Some big, with fifty or more people, but most pretty small. Families, groups of loners.”

  Ledger nodded.

  “Or,” Gutsy continued, “they could have been from the base. Not soldiers but something else—scientists or lab techs. Like that.”

  “That feels more likely to me,” said Ledger. “Even so… something about them gives me a bad feeling. Can’t quite put my finger on it.”

  “I know,” said Gutsy. “Chong said they were fighting the ravagers. What does that mean? If they’re not shamblers and not ravagers… what does that leave?”

  “Beats the heck out of me, kid. We have a lot more questions than we have answers.”

  “Well, if anyone who wasn’t a ravager got out of the base, I didn’t see them. It was pretty crazy, though. Mostly I saw ravagers heading toward town. I ran back right away to warn people.”

  Ledger nodded. “And by doing that, you probably saved everyone.”

  “Not everyone,” said Gutsy bitterly. “A lot of people died.”

  He stopped and turned, fixing Gutsy with a hard, blue-eyed stare. “But all of them would have died if you hadn’t. Focus on that, kid. That’s the patch of sunlight in all this.”

  “Kind of hard to see anything sunny right now.”

  “You will.” Ledger sighed. “Well… I hope so, anyway.”

  They exited through the east gate and walked onto the battlefield. Parts of the big walls of stacked cars had fallen, and most had burned to blackened shells. The heat from those fires weakened the metal of the cars, and the walls now swayed and creaked ominously. Teams worked with pulleys and levers to reinforce the barriers with fresh cars dragged in by mules. It was grueling, backbreaking labor.

  And it was slow.

  Gutsy looked along the sections that had been repaired and then at the much longer sections that were still undone. The hot morning suddenly felt very cold. Sombra raised up on his hind legs, paws against one of the cars, and whined, as if even an animal could see the danger here.

  “God…,” she breathed.

  “I know,” said Ledger.

  “It’s taking too long.”

  “I know.” He tapped her arm. “Come on.”

  They walked out into the fields on the other side of the rows of cars, picking their way through one of the many new gaps. Out there she saw so many dead los muertos that in places it was hard to know where to step. Thousands of them.

  “The ravagers used to be soldiers, right?” Gutsy asked. “So, this whole thing was what? Them just following the Raggedy Man’s orders?”

  Ledger nodded. “That’s what Collins said.”

  “This may sound weird, but even though I had to fight them and, you know… kill them… I don’t actually hate the ravagers. And definitely not the shamblers.”

  A ghost of a smile flickered over Ledger’s face. “Why would you? They’re driven to kill because of parasites that hot-wire their brains. That’s not evil any more than a mosquito or lion is evil. As for the ravagers, it’s harder to say if they are evil or still being controlled by the parasites. Maybe not so evil, then, as damaged and directed. The Raggedy Man seems to be able to control what the parasites do, so he’s definitely evil. He was a serial killer before being injected with the plague.”

  “Collins and the Rat Catchers are evil, too,” said Gutsy.

  “Sure they are,” said Ledger, “but they don’t think so.”

  “Oh, come on…”

  Ledger ran fingers through his gray-blond hair. “Listen, kid—people don’t wake up one day, look in the mirror, and say, ‘Hey, I think I’ll be evil from now on.’ Doesn’t work like that. They have a view of the world that may be skewed from another perspective, but it makes sense to them. Sometimes it’s greed, and I’ve gone up against a lot of those types. Criminals, corrupt politicians, heads of multinational corporations. A lot of harm was done in pursuit of money back in the day. Forests destroyed, the air polluted, the climate damaged…”

  “How’s that not evil?”

  “I didn’t say it wasn’t evil, kid; I said the people who did it didn’t see it as evil. There’s a kind of mind-set that makes some people think that they’re entitled to do whatever they want. Maybe because they’re already rich, or because they think other people shouldn’t have the same rights as them, or… well, there are a lot of messed-up rationalizations. There was one guy, a showman, who said that there was a sucker born every minute, which implied that if someone was gullible enough to be suckered, then it was on them and not the person trying to con them.”

  “That’s nuts.”

  “Sure. But it’s how some people think. It’s their justification, and it keeps them from admitting to themselves that they’re bad. Remember, most hatred is born from fear.”

  “Collins doesn’t seem to be afraid of anyone.”

  “Oh, she’s afraid. Her fear is all wrapped up in her need to save the world,” said Ledger. “On some level she thinks everything she’s ever done—every life taken, all her moral crimes—will be washed clean if she comes up with a cure. Might happen that way too. Bess Collins could become the most important person in the history of humanity. And people like you and your friends won’t even be a footnote in the history books.”

  * * *

  They walked through the battlefield for nearly five minutes before Gutsy could find any words that fit in her mouth.

  “I hate that she could win. I want to kill her for what she did to Mama.”

  Ledger studied her. “What if she actually does find a cure? Will you still want her dead then?”

  Gutsy had no answer to that.

  They walked in silence through the field of the dead.

  27

  SPIDER WORKED ALL MORNING, HELPING where he could, looking for more things to do, more places to be. Everywhere in town there was more to be done. Homes to repair. Food and supplies to be salvaged from destroyed buildings. Bodies to be buried. Old and injured people to be taken care of. Animals to be fed.

  He dragged Alethea with him, and by noon they were staggering with weariness, covered with dirt and blood, gasping for air, but there was still so much.

  They shuffled wearily down the street, heading back to the hospital, having just escorted an injured mother home to the empty house where her husband and eldest daughter would never return. The woman was as silent as a stone, her eyes barely blinking, her dark skin gone sickly yellow with shock. Then the two teens left her there in the wasteland of her life.

  Alethea glanced at her foster brother. “You okay?”

  Spider shrugged.

  “No, seriously,” she persisted. “You’ve been acting weird all morning. I mean weird-er. Don’t make me have to check you for bites, now. I swear to God I’ll—”

  “We killed people,” said Spider. His voice was nearly empty of anything except breath. No tone, no inflection. A dead voice.

  “No,” said Alethea, “don’t even try to go there. We put some of los muertos down. That’s all we did.”

  “We murdered those soldiers.”

  “Who? The ravagers? Sorry, honey—they might have been soldiers once upon a time, but all they were last night were los muertos in leather and chains.”

  “They could speak,” said Spider. “They could think. They could remember who they were, and we killed them.”

  Alethea gave a stubborn shake of her head. “Nope. No way. Those freaks were halfway to being los muertos, and, okay, maybe they weren’t brain-dead shamblers, but they’re not alive. They’re not people anymore.”

  Spider flinched at her words. “How can you say that? Even the shamblers were people once. And it’s not like what happened to them is their fault. And now they’re dead because we killed them. I never wanted to kill anyone. Never.”

  He shook his head and lapsed into a dangerous silence. Alethea tried to touch him, to give him reassurance, but there was no response at all.

  When they were six blocks from the hospital, Spider abruptly turned and walked into the mouth of a shadow-darkened alley.

  “Hey,” called Alethea. But she saw him drop his fighting stick. Saw him sink down into a low crouch and wrap his arms around his head. She saw his body shudder as the sobs—still unheard—tore through him.

  Alethea pawed at the tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

  She straightened her tiara and went into the alley, knelt down, and pulled Spider into her arms.

  Interlude Three Brother Mercy

  FIVE YEARS AGO

  “WHAT PATTERN DO YOU WANT?” asked the tattoo artist, Sister Ambrosia. “You look like someone who’d like thorn bushes, or maybe wasps. Something with some edge, am I right?”

  Everyone in the Night Church had their heads shaved and scalps tattooed as a sign of faith and humility before god.

  Brother Mercy glanced at a group of women seated on stools a dozen yards away, waiting for their turn with another artist. Leafy was among them. They had not spoken at all in the thirteen months since Mercy had fought the guards to try and save her. Girls and boys were kept apart until they had taken the full reaper vows and underwent the tattoo ceremony.

  Leafy—now known as Sister Sorrow—already had her tattoos outlined: hummingbirds dipping their long beaks into the open mouths of lilies, datura, and honeysuckle. She sensed him watching and looked at him, giving a shy, brief smile.

  He felt his face grow hot, but in a good way.

  “Brother… ?” prompted Sister Ambrosia. “I can give you anything you want. Bugs, birds, fish…”

  “Leaves,” he said.

  “What kind?” asked the tattoo artist.

  “Dead ones,” he said, remembering that sacred autumn day. The leaves in her hair had been withered, but all the more beautiful for that. It was as if death’s holy hand had touched her that day.

  Sister Ambrosia looked at him, then over to Sister Sorrow, and then down at her tools. She wore a small and knowing smile that Brother Mercy did not see.

  PART SIX NEW ALAMO

  You have to keep your mind as wide-open as your eyes, because almost nothing is what it seems.

  —TOM IMURA

  28

  THEY ALL MET BACK IN Mr. Ford’s classroom around ten that morning.

  “Okay, campers, here’s where we stand,” said Captain Ledger, taking charge of the meeting.

  Gutsy, Alethea, and Spider sat in a clump of chairs by the window. Benny and his friends were still clustered protectively around Chong against the opposite wall, as if their closeness could somehow protect him from reality. Ford, Urrea, Karen, and Sam sat on folding chairs between the camps of teens. Grimm and Sombra were asleep, back to back, in a broad patch of golden sunlight.

  “Sam and I are going to be heading out soon,” Ledger began. “My hope is that we can work out some kind of deal with Collins—maybe even give her a pass to walk away in exchange for a crap-ton of the stuff we need to make more drugs, and enough weapons to stand a chance against the Night Army. Anyone have any objection to that plan?”

  Alethea raised her hand. “It sucks.”

  “I know it sucks, but do you have any objection to trying it?”

  “No,” she said, adjusting her tiara. “You have my permission to proceed.”

  Ledger grinned. “Some good news: Jose and Sunny-Day Ray fixed one quad by scavenging parts from the other two. It means that there’s only one that’ll work, but it runs. Kind of. They warned me that it has to be kept under thirty miles an hour to keep the engine from going kaflooey. Don’t even ask me how they found tires that fit. The tires are patched and nearly bald, but we have a working quad, so let’s not look a gift horse in the dentures.”

  “Thank God!” cried Urrea, and Ford nodded, his hand over his heart.

  “The downside is that the suspension is shot, and there are some other issues that make the quad a poor choice for two big men with a lot of heavy weapons and gear to piggy-back on it,” said Ledger. “Which means we have both lost time and need to go by horse. The only upside is that if Collins is where we think she is, it’s not that far away, and she’s unlikely to have moved on.”

  “That’s a big ‘if,’ ” said Urrea.

  “It’s what we have.” Ledger’s face clouded. “And… that brings us to some news none of us are going to be happy with. The good news is that Manny Flores has made a batch of the drug. What’s bad is that it’s not full potency. Best estimates are that Chong, Sarah, and Morton have less than a week before… well…” He let the rest hang and threw a weak, consoling smile at Chong.

  Everyone automatically glanced in Chong’s direction, and then over at Karen. Gutsy felt her heart sink in her chest.

  Less than a week.

  “This does leave us with a few options,” Ledger continued, and the others all looked suddenly, desperately hopeful. “Option one is we send Chong back to California on the quad, because there’s a lot more of the drug there.”

  “Not a whole lot,” corrected Chong. “It’s one of the reasons I came along on this trip: Asheville has the biggest supply, but it might also be threatened by the Night Army. We have a lot more back home than what’s here in New Alamo, but not an endless supply. Much as I’d normally volunteer to go back and get the drugs, I think I’ll stay here.”

  “Wait—why?” asked Benny. “It’s a good plan.”

  “No, it’s not,” said Chong. “I mean, c’mon, look at me, Benny. I can’t walk down a set of stairs without throwing up. I get double vision and headaches. Much as I would love, love, love to go back home and never leave again… do any of you really see me driving all that way?”

  “Chong’s right,” said Nix. “It’s a bad plan. He’d be in a ditch half a mile down the road. No offense.”

  “None taken,” said Chong.

  “How far is it to your town?” Gutsy asked. “How long would it take?”

  Urrea raised his hand like a kid in his own class. “On good roads, it’s sixteen hundred miles. Sixty-six hours at twenty-five miles per hour. If you take into account sleep, bathroom breaks, clearing debris from the roads, and avoiding and/or dealing with los muertos, figure closer to ninety. With everything going right, that’s four days at eighteen hours driving per day.”

  “It won’t be anywhere near that quick, though,” Benny said, looking thoroughly stressed. He explained the big detours they’d taken to avoid nuclear strike zones and areas polluted by chemical spills. “I think it would be closer to a hundred twenty hours. That’s five days easy, maybe six.”

  “Six lucky days, sure,” said Nix. “We didn’t have a lot of lucky days on the way here. Whoever went would get there just as the pills ran out here.”

  “Might be quicker than that,” said Ford, “because now you know the safest route.”

  “Safest, yes,” Nix said, “but not the quickest.”

  Gutsy raised her hand the way Urrea had and waited until everyone looked at her. “Can I say something?”

  “Sure, kid,” said Ledger. “We’re open to all ideas right about now.”

  She looked directly at Benny. “When you told me about your trip here, you said you had a radio of some kind. What did you call it? A walkie-talkie?”

  “Kind of,” said Benny. “What we have is a satellite phone, which has a better range than a walkie-talkie, but it stopped getting a signal a while ago.”

  “Yeah,” Ledger said morosely. “I found it in your saddlebag and tried it, too. Not a ghost of a signal. We’re way out of range.”

  “Oh,” said Gutsy, deflated.

  “What’d you have in mind?” Benny asked.

  “Well…,” she said uncertainly, “I thought that if somebody drove back, they could try calling along the way until they got through, then maybe someone from your town could drive out to meet them. And bring food, fuel, and a big bag of pills. That way, whoever we send could turn right around and come back.”

  They all looked at her.

  “But if the phone isn’t working, then…”

  Ford asked, “Excuse me, but how can we be out of range of a satellite?”

  “I was just going to ask that,” said Urrea.

  “But you’re old and slow.”

  “I’m only thirteen years older than you.”

  “Sure,” said Ford, “but let’s face it—they haven’t been good years.”

  Ledger, amused, said, “Satellites aren’t built to last forever. A lot of them had their electronics fried when the nukes went off. EMP waves go up as well as down. We probably lost eighty to ninety percent of the satellites over North America right there. Then we have natural failures like onboard computer navigation or systems failure, collisions with space junk, old age, whatever. The American Nation has managed to establish intermittent uplinks with four satellites, two in regular orbit and two geostationary. Problem is that they’re not linked, because they belonged to different telecom companies. Only one is military, and it’s a weather satellite we’ve piggybacked off of to bounce calls around.” He paused and looked around. “Is anyone following me on this?”

  “Clinging on by my fingernails,” admitted Urrea.

  “Gist is that it’s not easy to make a call,” said Ford.

  “Nearly impossible from anywhere in Texas,” Ledger agreed. “We managed to get calls from Asheville to the base we had in Nevada and to the Nine Towns in Central California, but that’s about it. And that’s spotty. Clouds, rain, whatever—it all mucks it up, and you have to wait for the right times of day for the orbiting satellites to fly through the right zones in order to sync up with the ones in fixed orbit.”