Uh-oh.

“Of all the times—”

Danton knew he shouldn’t complain. It would be far better for him to go now than after he got outside. Number One and number Two attracted Ziggy. Big time. He didn’t know if it was because on some instinctual level Ziggy knew living things needed to do that or if they were literally attracted to shit and piss. Sure, he’d never seen one eat a deuce before, but…

He drummed his fingers on the wall, wondering if he should go through all the trouble of putting the pane back just to remove it again. Danton doubted he could pull the duffel back inside and it would be risky leaving it out there. Now he’d have to worry about a scavenger too.

He checked his watch. It was a little after three. Grant would be up in a half hour. Had to hurry. Danton made his way back to the door, peaked out and crossed the hall to the restroom. He went into the stall, not bothering to lock it and quickly removed his jacket and several weapons from his belt so he could get his pants down.

Shouldn’t have messed with that chili, he thought.

When he finished he reached back and flushed.

“Dammit!” he whispered. That would have been just enough noise to wake somebody. He stood as quietly as he could and listened. There wasn’t anyone out there so far as he could hear.

He got his clothes back on and was washing his hands before he’d even thought about it. In a few moments he’d be running for cover from Ziggy if not battling him outright. He doubted Ziggy would point him for poor hygiene.

Danton opened the door and was surprised to see the back of Boyle’s bald head. The head brain spun around and stared at him with a dumbfounded look.

“I think someone broke in,” the old man said. Danton wanted to burst his bubble so badly, but he felt an equal amount of panic. He was caught, but he was the only one who knew it. Danton was the only one who knew about that pane, so they were thinking someone had broken in. It hadn’t crossed anyone’s mind somebody was trying to break out.

“What?” Danton fixed a worried expression on his face. He was worried too; afraid he was about to be caught. He wanted to run back to his room and hide. Forget about Cargill, forget about the big bag of guns, he just wanted to be safe. But he knew he was past the point of no return. As soon as Boyle had gotten over his own fear he’d analyze the situation. Like one of his experiments, he would take the known facts and apply them to several theories. Whichever one filtered true would be the one he’d believe.

Those eyes had contained nothing but fear, but they were constantly recording. He’d seen everything Danton had had on and upon future reflection would know it was him and not some straggler who’d found a way inside.

Danton brushed past the brain and went into the room. The light was on and a half dozen dogs were standing around apprizing the situation.

“What are you doing?” Eddies asked as he stood up on the copier and peeked out the window.

“Looking to see if Ziggy’s around.”

“We need to figure out how to patch this window up. Whoever broke in here, if he’s still here, dropped it on the floor. Woke the whole place up. I see you came ready.”

Danton looked down and saw the plexi-glass section split in two jagged halves. That would have made a loud sound. He gave his forehead a mental slap. The restroom was soundproofed—of course he wouldn’t have heard it.

“Hey, why are you wearing all that stuff?” Groome asked. “I only brought my sidearm.”

“I was already awake.” Danton shimmied his way up. He was going to have to play this fast. Any minute it was going to start clicking what he was really up to. “I’m just going to see if anyone is around.”

“Danton, get back here,” Eddies said, but his legs slipped out after him and he planted his feet on the ground and stood.

“I’ll beright back. Don’t worry.”

He was risking his neck to save one of his own. No way had he gone this far just to draw down on another dog. He had to get away quick before someone came after him and started shooting.

Danton could feel their eyes on him. Someone whisper-shouted and he turned and waved them off. A few more feet and he would be clear.

“Danton! It was Danton!”

Boyle. Dammit.

He took off running and a moment later heard a bullet whiz off somewhere in the distance. He rounded the corner and was clear momentarily. His camo was bright enough to make out in the weak moonlight, but he gambled that if he got at least fifty yards away they wouldn’t pursue.

The bag!

Dammit!

There was no turning back now. If they wouldn’t have executed him before, they certainly would now. Danton was AWOL and the first rule after the dogs had organized after the apocalypse was deserters got shot in the face. There was no explaining that he just wanted to see Cargill put down right, that he wasn’t really abandoning the base.

He was as dead as if Ziggy was chomping on his arm right now.

If he’d actually thought about what he was doing he probably wouldn’t have gotten into this mess. His superior officers had often told him he was a good soldier, but he needed to use his head more. Maybe if he’d tried he could have convinced them to sendhim out to find Cargill. Hell, maybe they would have sent him with someone. Who knew what scientific data could have been gathered?

All that made perfect sense. Now.

“Might as well finish this mistake.”

He turned in the direction where Cargill’s lemony ziggies had been circling for the last three weeks. That was the thing about packs. They tended to circle several times before changing direction and circling elsewhere. He hoped they hadn’t changed yet.

Keeping low, Danton started a light jog with a machete in his hand, wondering where the smell of burning wood was coming from.

***

Danton planted his foot on Ziggy’s face and slid his machete out of its skull. Some poor sap who’d been a hobo in the before; life hadn’t dealt him a heavy enough blow—no, he had to come back as a flesh-eater.

It was unusually quiet. Danton hadn’t even so much as run into a straggler. Stragglers were ziggies that had fallen away from their pack. They didn’t last too long. A pack had a collective intelligence. They tended to avoid things like large bodies of water or buildings on the verge of collapse. A straggler would walk right into an open manhole. Or maybe it would run into a single.

Danton was amazed to learn the brutal hierarchy in the Ziggy community. Singles wouldn’t bother packs, wouldn’t bother other singles, but if they found a straggler…Danton’s mind floated back to the ziggy he just slayed. A straggler. Either he’d gotten separated from his pack or maybe something Cargill had said rang true.

The smell of burning wood chips was still in the air, but more faint. If there was this new pack that had been scent-marked by someone could it be attacking other packs? What if someone had figured a way to put these higher-thinking ziggies into packs?

He shuddered at the thought. A pack that had the mental capacity to problem solve might be just this side of unstoppable.

Danton hoped Cargill wasn’t in his right mind. That maybe he could just put the man down and find safety again.

“Cargill, you there?” Danton said into his com. After a moment he heard a few clicks. Morse code.

“T-A-L-K-L-A-T-E-R,” came the reply. He wondered if that pack was close by.

“P-O-S-I-T-I-O-N?” he signaled back to him.

He knew the base could hear, that there were at least a dozen dogs who knew Morse code, but he had to try.

“U-N-V-R-S-T-Y-A-N-D-D-A-L-E.”

“University and Dale,” Danton said. That was less than a half mile from here. In less than two hours he could be there. But how far would they have traveled by then?

And would he run into whatever hobo-man’s pack had run into?