He waved the revolver.

There was no thinking. My eyes shifted from the gun to Phil’s chest, the world going gray at the edges. The Beretta rose, a heavy black star in an empty sky, the distilled power of death over life. Five reports crashed against my ears in the small attic, deafeningly loud. Phil jerked with the impacts, eyes widening in shocked surprise. The nickel-plated revolver clattered to the ground, followed by its owner. I stood still a few seconds, gun trained on Phil’s head. His eyes remained open, fat cheeks squashed to the side, his legs locking underneath him so that his buttocks protruded comically in the air. Behind me, the dead woman thrashed with renewed violence.

“Time to go, Caleb.”

My hand didn’t move. I counted backwards from five and let out a long breath. The gray began to fade from my vision.

“Time to go, Caleb.”

The desk rattled behind me, clanking and clattering against the wall. I imagined myself in the same situation and knew without question I would not want to be left that way. So despite the danger and my collapsing timetable, I stepped the rest of the way into the attic and approached the infected woman.

Her bite on the gag was so intense her teeth had sunk into the rubber ball clear to the gum line. The muscles of her jaw stood out in striated relief, exerting pressure far in excess of what any sane living person could have managed. She craned her head over her shoulder and glared at me with wide, red-rimmed eyes.

I raised my pistol and centered the white dots on her forehead. “I guess your friends already heard me,” I said. “So one more shot won’t make much difference now, will it?”

TWENTY-SEVEN

My first instinct was to run out the back door and sprint for the boat. However, when I reached the bottom of the staircase, I could see a knot of at least a dozen undead blocking the way.

“Shit.”

Think, Caleb.

I knew they hunted by sound. I knew the blast of my pistol attracted them. I knew they would follow that sound wherever it led. The question was how keen was their tracking ability?

With no other option, I made my way to the front door, stepped out onto the porch, and fired a shot in the air. All at once, a scattering of more than a hundred undead looked in my direction, eyes wide with inhuman hunger. One of them opened its mouth and let out a ragged GAAUUGGGHHGGHH, and began lurching toward me. Another followed suit, then another, and another, until in short order, they were all headed my way. From the back of the house, I heard an answering call and the sound of dragging footsteps.

“Stay calm. Stand your ground.”

I waited, although every instinct screamed at me to run. There is something about the infected, some primal response in the human brain, that incites panic in even the most rational and courageous of minds. Perhaps it is the reminder of our own mortality, or the prospect of becoming one of them, or the innate homo sapiens fear of being eaten. Whatever the cause, it is powerful.

They drew closer. My hands began to sweat around the pistol and the crowbar. I thought about discarding the big hunk of metal, but decided against it. If things went south, at least I knew it would not run out of ammo.

The infected from the back yard flowed around the sides of the house like sluggish lava. I thought about all the times I had gone fishing, and appreciated how the bait worms must have felt. Nonetheless, I stood still.

The closest infected was ten feet away now. It had been a woman, once. Middle aged, long graying hair, medium height and build, bare feet torn and bloody, most of the meat of her abdomen and right leg eaten away, loops of intestine dangling from a gaping black cavity where her midsection used to be, flies and maggots swarming the blackened flesh. The smell reached me and forced me to swallow hard against a throat full of bile.

I let her get to within six feet before I raised the pistol and put her out of her misery. Not because I felt particularly sorry for her, but because I wanted her dead body to form a trip hazard for the other infected walking up the steps. After she fell, I dragged her body so it laid at the most inconvenient angle possible, then ducked through the door and locked it.

Peering through a window into the back yard, I saw it was now empty. I breathed a sigh of relief and stepped outside.

And promptly pitched forward onto my face.

Something had clamped down on my ankle with the strength of a vise. I threw my hands out to catch myself, and let out a surprised oomph as I hit the ground. The pistol went flying off the porch, tumbling into the grass ahead of me. I managed to hang on to the crowbar.

Recovering, I looked behind me and saw something out of a nightmare.

Its legs were gone. Not all of them—the femur bones, some muscle tissue, and a few tendons and ligaments remained—but everything from the knees down had been eaten away. It was male, dark skinned, rail thin, its scalp hairless, lips curled over bloody teeth. I let out an involuntary shout and tried to kick it away to no avail. Its grip was iron, its fingers like steel cables wrapped around my ankle. With incredible strength, it dragged my foot to its mouth and bit down on the steel toe of my boot. I stared in sick fascination as its upper teeth chipped and broke away. The spell was broken when it began thrashing its head back and forth like an attack dog.

I swung the crowbar one handed, but it had no effect. The metal simply bounced off the creature’s head with a dull clunk. Sitting up, I gripped the bar with both hands, took careful aim, and brought it down on the ghoul’s wrist. There was a crunch, but its grip did not let up. I raised the bar and swung again, then a third time, a fourth. On the fifth swing, there was a wet snapping sound and the pressure on my leg finally released. I scrambled up, cursing and stumbling.

“Rotten sack of shit.”

Already, the crawler was pulling itself across the porch, a moan rattling in its throat, mouth gaping. I stared in horror at the pure, animal need in the things eyes—eyes that had once belonged to a man with a heart, and a mind, and a soul. I felt as though I were looking upon a profound desecration, an abomination of something once sacrosanct. I would have been less affected watching someone smear shit on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

The crowbar rose and fell three times, and the crawler went still.

*****

Sophia heard the gunshots, but as requested, stayed on the boat.

“What happened,” she asked as I hopped aboard, eyeing the gore-streaked crowbar in my hand. “Where’s Phil?”

“Dead.”

“Dead? How?”

I tapped the Beretta in its holster. “I shot him.”

“What!”

“He tried to kill me, Sophia.”

Her face froze. A bloom of anger started somewhere behind her eyes and spread in a red flush until it disappeared beneath her shirt. “Why?”

I told her I only wanted to explain it once, so she would have to wait until we got back to the cabin. The others were waiting for me on the shore, evidently having heard the shots as well. There was a cacophony of questions, everyone trying to speak over one another. I waved them into silence.

And then I told them.

Lauren put her arms around me and wept and said she was sorry I had been through so much, so young. My father looked on, and I wondered how a man as strong and capable as he was could look quite so at a loss for words.

The others left us alone.

*****

We took 2673 to 306 North.

The idea was to put the lake between the soldiers and infected headed our way. Mike drove the lead Humvee, followed by Blake in his Jeep, Sophia and I in her father’s truck, Dad and Lauren behind us, and Lance bringing up the rear in the other Humvee. Lola rode in the back of the rear vehicle with Tyrel across her lap, still unconscious.