“We can go get it now, if you want,” Quentin said.

“What do I do with it?” Dillon said.

“You can hide it at my place,” Quentin said.

“Your place?”

“Yeah,” Quentin said. “It’s not that far, and it will be safe there.”

“So, you’re going to break the law for me,” Dillon said.

“No, not for you.”

“Well, then?”

“They raped my daughter,” Quentin said. “That was my daughter, Lacy. I want to pay them a visit. And like I said, I can’t do it alone. My deputies are probably all dead.”

“How many are there?” Dillon said.

“Probably twenty or so. Maybe more. Not really sure. They come and go,” Quentin said.

“I always wanted kids,” Dillon said. “I was married once. I thought she and I would have a lot of kids. We had one. She lives in Virginia. My daughter.”

“What happened?” Quentin said, looking the man in the eye, trying to measure him. Could he be trusted?

“I went to prison,” Dillon said. “Occupational hazard.”

“You help me and I promise you can stay in town. It’s not too late to have a family,” Quentin said. “You have my word on that. We got a deal, James?”

“How did you know my first name?”

“I got a call yesterday from the FBI in Sacramento. The FBI is looking for you. They said you were the gang leader. But I wasn’t sure it was you they were talking about until now.”

“I’m popular,” Dillon said. “All right, Sheriff, you got yourself a deal.”

Quentin put out his hand and they shook on it.

“Put up your right hand and repeat after me: I, James Dillon, hereby do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, and the laws of the state of California, against all enemies, foreign and domestic, so help me God.”

“Sure, why not,” Dillon said.

“You’re hereby deputized. Welcome to the Department. You have the right to carry a firearm in public and to make arrests,” Quentin said.

They loaded up all the ammunition they could carry: three cases of 12 gauge shells, five cases of .45 caliber hollow points, and six full cases of .206 for the department’s M-16s. And they found a few boxes of rounds for the Desert Eagle. To make sure they had enough sidearms, they took all the Glocks they found, of whatever caliber.

Quentin was coming back for the last of the ammunition when he saw the door to the basement move. Someone was pounding on it from the other side. Several Howler bodies blocked the door—Quentin recognized one of them, a man’s, as Timberline’s Bank of America branch manager. The banker’s face, now made grotesque by a heavy Neanderthal jawline, had been stitched by machine-gun fire. The banker’s skull was almost torn in two, held together only by grey matter.

“Help! Help us, for fuck’s sake!” Dillon heard someone screaming hysterically on the other side of the steel door. He walked over the Howler-littered floor. He raised his Thompson.

  “Who is it?”

“It’s Rebecca. Open the fucking door!”

“Why didn’t you say it was you,” Dillon said. He rolled away the piled and shot-up bodies from in front of the narrow door and it flew open.

*   *   *

They were standing in a bedroom looking down on Bell, who had passed out.

“We can’t take him,” Wood said. “Look at him. And he might become one of them. You heard what CNN said. How can we be sure he’s not infected? He told me he fought with them hand to hand.”

Lacy looked down on the thin, red-headed lieutenant. The power had come on and off several times that afternoon and was back on. They’d carried Bell, unconscious, into one of Wood’s extra bedrooms. The bedroom was warming up again; the house had gotten cold while the power had been down.

Lacy and Robin had sat in the kitchen deciding what they would do. Twice Lacy had tried her father’s cell phone, but hadn’t gotten through. Wood wanted to go to his mother’s house in Burlingame in the Bay Area. His mother was very well-to-do, and he’d gotten her on his phone. She’d told him that none of the things that she’d seen on TV were happening in the Bay Area. She’d urged her son to come down, and bring Lacy, as soon as possible.

“We can’t just leave him,” Lacy said. “That would be cruel.”

“What happens if he turns into one of them?” Wood said. “Then what?”

“We’d have to—kill him,” Lacy said.

“Well, from what I’ve seen on the TV that might not be so easy,” Wood said.

“Where’s his gun?”

“In the kitchen. I’d better go get it,” Wood said, looking down at the lieutenant. “He’s sweating like a pig.”

“Maybe he’s just sick,” Lacy said.

“I think he’s probably infected,” Wood said. Her boyfriend had been afraid to even touch Bell after he’d seen TV footage from L.A. about the riots. She’d been forced to drag the lieutenant into one of the ground-floor bedrooms by herself. Robin had refused to take his vital signs, or even treat his bleeding wound, terrified that he would catch whatever was turning people into monsters.

“We can’t just let him die,” Lacy said. “What do I do? Look how dirty that bandage is.”

“You can’t touch him. You could be infected,” Wood said.

“How do you even know it’s contagious, for God’s sake?”

“CNN said it was probably some kind of virus. We have to assume that’s how it’s being spread to healthy people, by some kind of virus, Lacy. Like AIDS.”

“Tell me what to do, Robin. He needs our help.”

“You’ll have to clean his wound and dress it. It might be infected—that might be why he has the temperature,” Robin said. “Lacy. Leave him here. Forget him. Let’s go while we can. I have a full tank of gas in the Prius. We can be in the Bay Area in four hours. Less. My mom said it’s safe there.”

“I’m not just going to leave this man. We have to take him,” she said. “What if it was you lying there?”

Wood looked at her, a strange expression on his face. It was a look she’d never seen before. It was murderous.

“Okay. I’ll get what you need. And I’ll bring in the pistol, just in case.” He left the room. Her cell phone rang and she jumped. “Hello.”

“Lacy?”

“Daddy?”

“Where are you?” Quentin said.

“I’m at Robin’s place.”

“You have to leave there and go to Chuck’s place. I’ll meet you there in a few hours. You can’t stay there at Robin’s. It’s not safe.”

“The lieutenant is sick. He passed out. Robin wants to leave him and go to his mother’s in San Francisco,” she said.

“You can’t travel on the roads. They’re not safe. Just go to Chuck’s place. Please, honey.”

“I can’t leave Bell here.”

“Is he—is he turning into one of them?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

“Maybe you should consider leaving him behind.”

“No! I won’t. What if it were you? Or anyone we know.”

“He’s not family, Lacy.”

“I don’t care. He’s a human being. I think he’s just sick.”

“Okay—bring him to Chuck’s. But you can’t stay there at Robin’s. You promise me? You’ve got to get to Chuck’s.”

“I promise. I’ll bring him and Robin as soon as I—” She turned off her phone and looked out the bedroom window. She saw Robin Wood pull his white Prius out of the carport. They looked at each other through the window; then Wood continued down the driveway and was gone.

“He took the pistol ... the one my father gave us,” Lacy said. It was dark, and the power had gone off in the house again. This time it hadn’t gone back on. The big ranch house was getting colder and colder.

“Your boyfriend left you?” Bell said.

“Yeah.”

Bell lifted himself up on the bed. She’d fed him some soup she’d managed to heat up in the fireplace. He looked down and saw he was wearing clean underwear. His nylon flight suit was at the foot of the bed.