“So where you see this going, the two of you?” Blake asked, interrupting my thoughts.

“Hell if I know, man. I’m just taking it a day at a time.”

He looked out toward the hotel and the dim orange dots of campfires in the parking lot. Humvees patrolled and rifles cracked in the distance as the troops on watch kept the infected at bay. His customary smile faded, replaced by a fearful solemnity that hurt me to see on his jovial face. “Guess that’s all anybody can do right now, things being the way they are.”

We walked in the dark for a while, each in his own thoughts. As we passed by Sophia’s sleeping form, I stopped to watch her. Blake stopped as well, back turned, giving me a moment to myself. He was good that way. Perceptive. The kind of guy who understood things without needing someone to say it outright.

“What’s going to happen to us, do you think?” I asked.

I heard Blake’s boot scrape the metal roof as he turned and walked over to me. His hand was warm on my shoulder as he stood beside me, voice close to my ear. “Caleb, I don’t know. You’re a grown man now, so I ain’t gonna bullshit you. Things are bad. Real bad. Worst I ever seen.”

“I know that much.”

“I know you do. What I’m saying is, I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better. I think we’re in the early stages of something long, and dark, and terrible. If we want to get through it, we got to be strong. We got to stick together like family. You understand?”

I nodded, and did.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s keep moving. Best lesson I ever learned—when in doubt, keep moving.”

The half-moon was clear the next few hours. No clouds obscured its shine on an oasis of green in a sea of charred black. At four in the morning, after an impossibly long watch, I woke Mike and Lance and waited while they cleared their heads and armed themselves. Afterward, I ambled back to my bedroll, back to Sophia. She stirred as I lay down and draped an arm around her.

“Hey,” she muttered. “Ev’thing okay?”

I kissed her cheek. “Everything’s fine, pretty lady. Go back to sleep.”

She smiled. I closed my eyes to the stars and the moon and languished in her sweet, humid, feminine warmth.

Even the gunshots and roar of engines could not keep me awake.

THIRTY-FOUR

“Come on,” Dad said, shaking my arm. “Spear practice.”

I sat up and blinked against the early light of dawn. To the east, the sun was an angry scarlet eye peeking over the hills in the distance. Low banks of clouds rolled overhead in varying shades of red, orange, pale yellow, and finally blue that darkened to steel gray in the west. The air was cool, but heavy with humidity and the promise of higher temperatures to come.

Sophia had rolled away from me in the night and lay curled up under her thin blanket. I brushed the hair from her face and kissed her cheek. She stirred, sighed, and smiled. I kissed her again before I left.

Dad had set up a fast-rope descent to the parking lot. When I arrived, he slid down it like the practiced expert he was, then tossed his harness up to me. Although I was quite a bit taller than him, we were about the same through the hips. The harness fit me just fine. I repeated the process, albeit without quite the same grace and fluidity.

The bucket-equipped HEMTT was already on site, breaking the infected’s bodies by crushing them, then scraping them into a pile in the middle of the pavement. It was gruesome work, but effective. The parking lot was almost clear. Two Bradleys circled the operation, big chain-guns aimed at the thicker knots of undead.

“Let’s find someplace a bit more peaceful,” Dad said. I nodded in agreement and followed him to one of the Humvees. We drove back to 281 and pulled into the parking lot of the hotel where the rest of the soldiers and civilians had spent the night. Evidently, none of them were awake yet except for the guards on patrol. The place was quiet, only a few bleary-eyed troops and roving vehicles on hand to disturb the early morning silence.

Dad pulled around the back of the building near the service entrance where there was a narrow stretch of cracked asphalt, a half-full dumpster, silent AC units, and not much else. To our right was an expanse of slightly overgrown lawn roughly two acres wide.

“Looks like a good spot,” I said. Dad agreed. He drove the Humvee over the curb, parked, and got out.

The old man—who really was not old at all—opened the back so I could crawl inside and dig out our two rubber-tipped practice spears. When I tossed him his full-length faux weapon, he caught it one handed, spun it deftly around his body, and assumed a fighting stance, knees slightly bent, haft close to his hips, rubber tip pointed in my direction.

My own weapon was only half as long, the handle shortened to my specifications. The blade on the end of mine was wider, heavier, and longer than the one my father wielded, although also formed of the same vulcanized rubber. I held it with my hand choked near the blade, the bulk of the handle protruding over my shoulder. In the years since I’d developed this unique fighting style, Dad had never quite sorted out all my tricks.

“You’re too traditional,” I said for the umpteenth time as we circled each other. “Too stiff. You need to innovate.”

“Don’t worry, kid,” he said, a determined look on his face. “I’ll figure you out yet.”

“Why are we still fighting with spears anyway?” I asked. “Wouldn’t knives or machetes make more sense?”

The answer was predictable; I had heard it a thousand times. “Spears were the infantry rifle of the ancient world,” he said. “You’ve probably read volumes about swords, but the truth is spears were the deciding factor in countless battles throughout history. They’re easy to forge, durable, and extend a warrior’s reach by meters without requiring an undue amount of resources to manufacture. Swords, axes, and maces are pretty to look at, but spears, halberds, and billhooks were the preferred weapons of the soldiers of old. And with good reason.”

I nodded along, too tired to argue the merits of modern weapons over ancient. “All right then. Let’s see what you got.”

I barely had time to dodge the tip of his weapon as it whipped past my head. One second my father was standing twelve feet away, and the next he had closed the distance, his spear extended in a two-handed grip. Dad was many things, but slow was not one of them.

Fortunately for me, my boxing coach always insisted I learn and practice the fundamentals of head movement. It is less about being fast than it is about understanding body mechanics, watching your opponent, and knowing where the next attack is coming from. My dad was a competent boxer, among other fighting styles, but he did not start as early as I did. The muscle memory was not as deeply ingrained in him as it was in me. So when he swept the spear to the side after missing with the initial thrust, I had already ducked it and circled away.

“Nice,” he said, grinning. He adjusted his footwork and began closing in on my right. I switched my spear to the other side, having long ago learned the value of being able to fight with either hand.

Keeping my head low and my feet moving, I harassed him with eerie-looking over-the-shoulder thrusts with my spear’s shortened handle, aimed at batting his weapon aside.

“How the hell do you do that?” he muttered, backing off. “It’s like you have a scorpion tail or some shit.”

Rather than answer, I used the distraction to aim a kick at the mid-point of his spear shaft, closed the distance, whipped my weapon forward, and let it slide through my hand. When I felt the slightly flared pommel hit the edge of my palm, I ducked, leapt forward, switched hands, and rolled to my right.

As expected, my father predicted the kick and the thrust, and was ready with a counter-attack. He let his arms go limp to absorb the blow to the spear, executed a spin move like a dancer’s pirouette, and slashed at the spot where my head should have been.