“Doing what?” Jane asked.

“If you see one of those zombies,” Harry explained, “shoot it. In the head if you can, but just shoot it.”

The sun was now low, the street cast in shadow. Soon it would be dark. Jane should’ve been worried about finding a place where they could spend the night, a place where the creatures couldn’t get to them. But with these men, even standing in the middle of the street fully exposed, she felt safe. Safe, for the first time since they’d left the cabin the day before.

She took a look over her shoulder. Nic was at the rear, walking backwards, pivoting from side to side. In the middle, Harry carried Walker, Ryan at his side.

“Keep watching forward,” Harry told her.

Jane nodded and resumed her watch on the street in front of them as they advanced. There wasn’t a creature in sight. Where had they all gone? Surely others nearby had heard the shots. When would they arrive? Or had the gunfire scared them off?

“We’re headed for the stairs,” Harry told her.

Perhaps thirty yards ahead stood a tall metal canopy. Underneath it were two sets of escalators with a wide staircase between them, all leading down. She remembered passing through Bern two weeks before. A large part of the train station had been underground. Based on this and what Harry had said before — about catching a train — Jane guessed that this was the station entrance.

Nic said something, and then he and Harry exchanged a few words in French. They spoke calmly and evenly, but seriously.

“What is it?” Jane asked.

“There are a few back by the marketplace,” Harry replied, “but they haven’t seen us yet.”

She forced herself not to turn her head. Nic had the area behind them covered, and she had responsibilities of her own. Which is when a figure appeared at the top of the staircase in front of her. The weapon shifted in her hands, a signal that she intended to use it. She had no idea if this new way of holding it was superior to the way she’d been holding it before. She just wanted Harry to know.

“That’s Adrian,” Harry said. “He’s with us.” Then he added, “You can let him live.”

Adrian was short and heavy, and he arrived at the top of the stairs out of breath. What was left of his receding hair was a blend of black and white, pepper and salt. He might’ve been Harry’s age or older, it was hard to tell. Like the others, he was carrying a rifle.

As soon as he spotted Harry and Nic, his gaze shifted from side to side, checking the areas they couldn’t see. It was a military move if Jane had ever seen one, although clearly this man wasn’t fit to be a soldier. But weren’t they all soldiers, these Swiss?

Arriving at the top of the stairs, Harry quizzed Adrian in that version of German that Jane couldn’t even begin to understand. When Nic joined them, his focus still on the creatures near the marketplace, the conversation shifted to French.

Ryan was looking up at the events unraveling around him, as if it would all make sense if he just kept watching. Then his eyes found hers, his look a question, but she didn’t have any answers.

She turned to Harry.

“Look, I appreciate–,” she started to say.

“I know,” Harry said, cutting her off. “I can’t explain everything now. Let’s just get to the train. Then we’ll have time. Okay?”

With Walker under his arm and Ryan at his hip, Harry seemed larger than life. His hair was the color of clouds, his eyes the blue of a shallow tropical sea, his muscular arms weathered and bronzed. She had known this man for perhaps ten minutes, yet he had already become integral to their survival.

“Okay,” she said.

Adrian assumed her spot at the front, and the six of them moved quickly down the stairs and into the station. In front of them was a wide corridor. They moved forward, storefronts on both sides, their glass doors intact. There had been no looting here.

Up ahead on the left, the corridor opened up, and Jane recognized the high-ceilinged main terminal they had passed through two weeks before. Escalators and stairs led up to the ground floor, where a terrace overlooked the terminal. Above that was another terrace, and at the top a large translucent skylight, through which the last rays of the sun dully oozed.

Two weeks ago, this terminal had been swarming with people, swerving around each other as they rushed in all directions. Now the masses this terminal had been built to accommodate were gone, either evacuated to the mountains or transformed into flesh-eating monstrosities. Jane remembered the din of hurried footsteps and raised voices, of loudspeaker announcements and rumbling wheel bags. Now the vast space was empty and muffled by a silence their movements were too small and cautious to disturb.

The group hung to the right where the ceiling was low, flanking the terminal and following the corridor as it curved to the right. On each side of the corridor, ramps and stairs led up to the platforms that made up of the heart of the station. Signs hung from the corridor ceiling that on a normal day would’ve displayed departure times and destinations. Now these signs were ominously blank.

About halfway down the corridor, Adrian turned and moved quickly up a ramp; the others followed close behind. At the top, Adrian and Nic split off from the group, moving in opposite directions along the platform, their guns out in front of them. They scanned the area for signs of any threat, but as far as Jane could tell they were alone. A half-dozen platforms, each serving two sets of tracks. A massive space with a high concrete ceiling, open at both ends. But no creatures, no people, and no trains.

No trains, that is, except for the one waiting on the tracks in front of them.

It was a single towering railcar in front of a red locomotive. The railcar had two levels, like the one they’d ridden in from Zurich to Bern. At the front of the car, Jane discerned a compartment where presumably the driver sat.

The two doors on the side they were facing were closed. Inside the forward door, visible through a large window, a man stood watching them. He was tall, lean and muscular, with shoulder-length brown hair and a messy beard. As soon as Nic returned and gave the man a nod, he turned a lever above the door and it slid open. Adrian entered immediately and quickly stepped through a small door on the left that led into the driver’s compartment. Nic took a position in the open doorway, waiting.

Harry stepped in front of Jane, still holding Walker at his side.

“This is your last chance,” he said. “Once we leave, we’re not stopping for anything.”

“Where are you going?” Jane asked.

“Into the mountains,” Harry replied. “A town called Kandersteg. Adrian has set the tracks. If all goes well, we should be there in an hour.”

“And we’ll be safe there?”

“We think so. There shouldn’t be too many zombies, and the army is elsewhere. There’s a house in the hills all by itself, plenty of supplies. Even with a few extra people, we should be fine for six months.”

“We were just in the hills,” Jane said. “There were hundred of those creatures. We barely made it out.”

“I can’t promise you anything,” Harry said. “But at least you won’t be on your own. And Markus can take care of your husband’s wound.”

Harry gestured at the man who’d opened the door. He smiled at them and raised an eyebrow.

“He’s our medic,” Harry said.

Jane nodded and together they entered the train, Harry leading the way down a narrow corridor. An automatic door slid open, and they moved past some chairs to an open area that Jane saw was intended for bike storage. Along one side was a row of large backpacks, each one stuffed full and with a rolled sleeping bag tied to its top. Harry lowered Walker gently to the floor.

The train door hissed closed, and Jane heard Nic and Markus exchange a few words in French. Then she heard one of the men climb a set of stairs, and a moment later the automatic door opened and Markus loped down the corridor to join them.

He extended a hand and said, “Markus.”

“Jane.”

As they shook, he seemed to scrutinize her, holding her hand longer than necessary. In any other context, she would’ve thought he was hitting on her, but surely that could not have been the case here.

“This is my husband Walker,” Jane told him, “and our son Ryan.”

Markus nodded and released her hand. Then he turned to Harry, who had untied one of the sleeping bags and was unrolling it on the floor next to Walker.

“Läbt er no?” Markus asked.

“Ich glaub scho,” Harry said.

The two men looked down at Walker. His eyes were closed, and his lips were slightly parted. The T-shirt that Jane had wrapped around his wound was dark with dried blood, as was most of his left side. He wasn’t moving at all.

“Bisch sicher?” Markus asked.

“Nei.”

“What are you saying?” Jane wanted to know.

Markus looked at her but said nothing.

Harry said, “Your husband will be fine.”

Just then, Adrian appeared.

“Sind alli parat zum go?” he asked.

Harry nodded; Adrian turned and quickly walked away.

Markus opened one of the backpacks and pulled out a leather case and what appeared to be a bottle of vodka. He knelt down beside Walker and opened the case. He took out a bottle of hand sanitizer and cleaned his hands. Then he took out a pair of scissors.

“We’re going to leave now,” Harry told Jane.

Jane nodded and watched as Markus cut away the T-shirt that was wrapped around Walker’s wound. She kept watching as he set the makeshift bandage aside and cut open Walker’s shirt, revealing a dark, blood-crusted hole just under his collarbone. Ryan turned away, but Jane couldn’t stop staring. She had seen it before, but only now, in the safety of the train, was it finally sinking in. Her husband had been shot.

Markus opened the bottle of vodka and took a swig. He offered the bottle to Harry, who shook his head, and to Jane, who did the same. Then he set the vodka down next to Walker’s head and extracted from his case a sponge, some soap, and a bottle of water. After wetting the sponge, he soaped it up and began to clean Walker’s wound.

Suddenly Walker woke up, wide-eyed and in obvious anguish, and a strange, guttural noise erupted from his throat that was not quite a scream.

“Du hesch rächt,” Markus said to Harry, “er läbt no.”

Walker tried to sit up, but Markus pulled him roughly sideways so that he could clean the wound on his back. Markus said something to Harry, who placed an open bandage on part of the sleeping bag. Then the two men lifted Walker and placed him on the sleeping bag so that the bandage was directly under his exit wound.

Markus leaned forward, and as his fingers probed Walker’s throat, searching for a pulse, he stared into Walker’s eyes, trying to get the wounded man’s attention. Eventually Walker’s eyes steadied and he focused on Markus.

“All I have for the pain is this,” Markus said, showing Walker the vodka. “Can you drink?”

Walker nodded, and Markus pressed the bottle to Walker’s lips. The wounded man drank several gulps, eager to exchange a shattered shoulder for a burning throat. Finally Markus had to pull the bottle away from him, leaving Walker gasping like a man saved from drowning.

“Can you move your arm?” Markus asked.

Walker shook his head.

“I know you don’t want to,” Markus said. “But I need to know if you can. Can you move your fingers?”

Ryan, who had been standing with his face pressed into Jane’s arm, suddenly stepped past her and walked away. She waited a moment before following him out, watching as the fingers on Walker’s left hand wiggled weakly. Then she turned and moved back out into the entryway, feeling relieved as the automatic door slid shut behind her, separating her from her husband’s agony.

She found Ryan standing by the door, staring out at the platform.

“Ryan,” she said.

But he didn’t acknowledge her. His focus was fixed on the platform. Jane stepped forward and stood behind him to see what he was looking at.

There was a girl on the platform, perched just a few feet away from the door. She was perhaps eighteen, maybe a year or two younger, and dressed in a short-sleeved form-fitting black top and a small white skirt that barely reached the tops of her thighs. Her hair was long and dark, the kind of even, lustrous ebony that you can only get out of a bottle. Her skin — on her sharp-featured face, her skinny arms, and her long, slender legs — was colored the unnatural, icy green that had become so familiar. Her cloudy eyes were staring into the train. Staring at them.

“Looks like she was out when it happened,” Jane said.

“Out?”

“At a club or something.”

Ryan nodded.

Then he asked, “When what happened?”

Jane’s lips parted as her brain fumbled for an answer. Then the floor shifted and the train slid forward.

As the train moved away, the girl turned her head to watch it go. Ryan stepped toward the window so he could still see her. When the train’s path shifted slightly to the right and the girl was about to slip out of view, he raised his hand and waved. Standing at her son’s side, Jane thought she saw the girl’s arm twitch. Some part of her, some part that was still human, had wanted to wave in return.

“She seemed alright,” Ryan said.

“She was one of them,” Jane said.

“But she wasn’t too messed up. She was still…”

His voice trailed off. All the books he’d read, but he couldn’t find the word.

“Intact?” Jane offered.

“Yeah. That soldier in the forest. He said there was medicine.”

Ryan looked up at his mother.

“Do you think he was telling the truth?” he asked.

Before Jane could answer, a voice from above said, “There is no medicine.”

They turned and peered up a steep, narrow staircase to their left. At the top stood Nic.

“Shoot on sight,” he continued, “those are their orders. If you become one of them, or even if you are only bitten.”

“What is it?” Jane asked. “What’s happening?”

“No one knows,” Nic said with a shrug. “It’s just happening.”

The train was out of the station now, picking up speed. They moved onto a bridge, traveling on the tracks closest to the edge, making it appear as if the ground beneath them had vanished. Jane and Ryan looked down at the river below. It was the same river they’d crossed earlier, but now it was much further down and bathed in the deep orange light of dusk.

At the other end of the car, Walker let out another scream. Jane looked up at Nic.

“My husband,” she said. “His wound.”

“He is only shot,” Nic said with a shrug. “Better to be shot ten times than bitten once. Better to be shot twenty times.”

Once again he flashed the smile that had confused her before, the smile that had seemed so out of place. But now she felt she understood it. He was a man with a gun, a soldier. It wasn’t his place to show fear. He was there to protect, and to reassure.

“Come here,” he said, waving them up. “Meet the others.”

Jane and Ryan climbed the stairs to join him.

There were perhaps a half-dozen people on the upper level, sitting in turquoise high-backed seats along both sides of the car with an aisle running down the middle. The seats were arranged in pairs facing each other, and each set of four had its own window with a small table jutting out of the wall.

As they moved down the aisle, Nic introduced them to the people they passed. First was Harry’s wife and their daughter who appeared to be in her thirties. Then came Adrian’s girlfriend and his two children from a previous marriage, both in their teens. Names were exchanged but they slipped Jane’s mind almost immediately: the names were all Swiss and strange and easy to forget.

Jane could sense that these people were wary of her and Ryan, who unlike them had no personal connection to the men in charge. The language barrier didn’t help. Only Harry’s daughter seemed to speak and understand English.

Eventually they arrived at a young girl sitting alone. Nic took the seat beside her, introducing her as the daughter of his girlfriend. The girl barely acknowledged Nic. Her focus was out the window, on the terrain that they were slipping through with increasing speed. Nic invited Jane and Ryan to take the seats across from them.

“Her name is Hélène,” he told them.

The girl kept staring outside. Her dark hair, thick and straight, formed a curtain that drooped forward, partially obscuring her face. She was, Jane guessed, perhaps a year or two older than Ryan.

“She only speaks French,” Nic said, as if to explain the girl’s silence.

“Where is her mother?” Jane asked.

“She is dead,” Nic said. “She was supposed to come with us, but I had to shoot her. She was one of them.”

He shrugged, but the sadness in his eyes was unmistakable.

“Hélène was there when it happened,” Nic said, pausing for a moment to let this statement sink in. “She is unhappy with me. But still she must be taken care of.”

Jane nodded. She understood. The girl’s cold shoulder wasn’t simple teenage surliness. It had been a necessary death, perhaps even a charitable one. But for Hélène, Nic was still the man who’d killed her mother.

Jane glanced down the aisle. The rest of the seats were empty.

“What about Markus?” she asked. “Didn’t he bring anyone?”

Nic didn’t respond. He was looking over her shoulder, raising his eyes as someone approached them. Then Markus appeared and dropped into the seat directly across the aisle from Nic, diagonally facing Jane.

“No,” Markus said, “because Markus didn’t have anyone to bring.”

He sat slumped, his long legs sprawling. In one of his blood-sticky hands, he clutched the bottle of vodka. It was now half empty.

“How’s my husband?” Jane asked. She glanced at Ryan and saw him waiting for Markus’s response.

“The wound is clean,” Markus said. “I put on a bandage. He lost a lot of blood. Harry is giving him food and drink.”

Markus took a swig of vodka and then offered the bottle to Jane.

“No, thank you,” she said. She desperately wanted a drink, but the time wasn’t yet right.

“What day is it?” Ryan suddenly asked.

As Jane struggled to remember, Markus interjected.

“Today is Saturday,” he said.

Ryan looked puzzled.

“That can’t be right,” he said. “It’s got to be Wednesday or Thursday–”

“It’s Saturday,” Markus insisted.

Ryan glanced at his mother, who shook her head. She had no idea.

“Are you sure?” Ryan asked Markus.

Markus leaned over the arm of his chair, looking serious in a way that he hadn’t before. Jane watched Nic watching Markus; he appeared to know what was coming.

“Yesterday, God died for our sins,” Markus said. “Soon He will be reborn. But today is Saturday. There is no God.”

Ryan still looked confused.

“I know what you’re saying,” he said, “but it’s more likely that Jesus died on a Wednesday. If you read the Bible carefully–”

Markus let out a loud laugh that caught the attention of everyone on the upper level. Every conversation was abruptly cut off. Even Hélène snapped out of her daze.

In the ensuing silence, Markus sat back, took another swig of vodka, and peered across the aisle at Ryan.

“Son, whatever day it was Jesus died, whatever day it is today, the point is this: God is dead.”

He raised his bottle as if leading a toast.

“Welcome to the mess He left behind.”

Retard.

To Michelle, the word itself was meaningless. She’d never used it, didn’t know when it was meant to be used. If she’d ever tried to use it, she’d just have been guessing.

But she knew where the word led. She knew what it meant to her life. When she heard it, she knew. She knew that it was time to pack.

“Hey, retard.” A boy’s voice. “You got a second for us?”

With her books propped against her hip, she slammed her locker and turned, her eyes searching. Who had said it? Who had said the word? The hall was full of students, a stream of bodies flowing in all directions, but only Joe Downey was looking at her, standing in a group of his friends a short distance away, near an open classroom door. He was grinning that terrible grin, the grin that was a warning. What came after it was never good.

“Look at that,” Joe said when their eyes met. “It knows its name.”

He looked happy, proud even. But Michelle remembered the day they’d met. He hadn’t been happy or proud then. He’d approached her, and she’d said something wrong. She had insulted him somehow, and that had been that.

“You got time for us?” Joe asked. “Or are you busy?”

He said the last word with a sneer and, suddenly anxious, she approached him quickly, in a straight line. It was all boys there, Jerry, Brian, David and Max. Of course Max, he was always there, Joe’s sidekick. Joe was the shortest and the roundest. It was always the short, round ones. What was wrong with them?

The boys watched her, waiting, but she was stuck on what to say. A sick feeling was making it hard to think. A feeling she’d felt before, that often led to tears. It was starting, this was it. The beginning of the end.

“Oh Jesus,” Joe exclaimed. “It’s going to stare me to death!”

Laughter, they all laughed. There was something to be said here, but Michelle wasn’t sure what it was. Joe should explain. She could ask him to explain. But she couldn’t speak. Some horrible sound was trapped in her throat, and if she opened her mouth it would escape.

“Where’s your nurse?” Joe asked, a tone of concern in his voice that even she knew was dishonest. “Where’s Ryan?”

“I don’t know what I did,” she muttered.

“You don’t know what you did?” Joe repeated. “Well, you just walked over here. Before that you were at your locker. Wow, Ryan should know better than to let you wander around all by yourself.”

They were all looking at her intensely, as if they couldn’t quite see her. Squinting, brows furrowed. She was standing in a fog, difficult to discern.

“I don’t know what I did that made you do this,” she said. “I don’t know why I have to leave.”

She remembered the day, not long after she and Ryan had become friends. It was lunchtime, she was in the courtyard, and Joe approached her. There were pickles in her sandwich. Her father had put pickles in her sandwich, even though her father knew she hated pickles. He’d just forgotten, an innocent mistake, but still it was frustrating.

Joe approached her, but she was distracted, her sandwich open in her hand. She was peeling pickle slices out of a smear of mayonnaise, knowing that even without them her sandwich would still taste like pickles. Joe said something, he was smiling. But she didn’t have time for him.

“Can’t you see that I’m busy?” she said, staring at a slice of pickle dangling from between her fingertips.

Then a kind of panic, her words echoing in her short-term memory. She’d been too blunt. Not because she knew what blunt was, just what it sounded like. She tossed the pickle aside and looked up at him, but it was too late, the smile was gone. Something else had replaced it, an expression she’d seen before on the faces of other kids. She’d blown it.

He said something else, waited, but she only knew how to make the mistake, not fix it. There were words; she didn’t know them. He scowled and waved at her, a dismissal. Then he walked away, to the edge of the courtyard where Max stood. Joe said something, then the two of them looked at her and laughed. And from then on, every time they saw her, they laughed.

Like they were laughing now.

“Leave?” Joe said. “Are you gonna leave? That’d be a shame. We’d hate to see you go.”

“I always have to leave,” Michelle said, feeling it like she felt little else. Her eyes were hot, swollen. “There’s always a problem, I never know why, and then I always have to leave.”

Now they were looking at her wide-eyed. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, that’s what it was. They were watching her cry. But of course she was crying. All this leaving, all this trying. It was hard on her parents. And it would be hard on Ryan. She’d had friends before, but there’d never been someone like Ryan.

“Shit, Michelle,” Joe said, “I thought you were just retarded. But you’re a fuckin’ nut!”

“Fascist!” she hissed, and with a sweep of her arm across her face the tears were gone.

She stepped around them, past them, the main entrance a rectangle of light, the way out. They were behind her, forgotten. Then Ellie Brand stepped in her path, her eyebrows pulled together, a look of concern that Michelle knew was real. Nice, but too late.

“Where are you going?” Ellie asked. She peered over Michelle’s shoulder. “What did they do?”

“I need to go,” Michelle pleaded.

“What did they do?” Ellie asked again.

“Nothing,” Michelle insisted. “It’s not them, it’s me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s must be me, because they’re still here. If it was them then they’d have to leave, right?”

“Come with me to the bathroom,” Ellie said.

She reached out for Michelle’s arm; Michelle pulled it away. She knew that Ellie was only trying to help, but she didn’t want to go to the bathroom. There wasn’t time.

“I need to go home and pack,” she said.

“You won’t stay?” Ellie asked, so patient. Always so patient and friendly. “Can I call you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?”

“It’s Saturday. Can I call you?”

“Okay.”

***

At home she climbed the stairs and entered her mother’s bedroom. Alice was there, in bed, fast asleep. But of course she was there, in bed, fast asleep. That was Alice most of the time. Michelle couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her mother out of bed.

Alice’s nightgown was too small, her swollen bulk pushing at its seams, its fabric a second skin. Her obese frame spilled across the mattress. There was no longer room for Tom, so he didn’t sleep here. Instead he slept in the small bedroom down the hall, the one across from Michelle’s. All he needed was a bed, he said, and a place to hang his suits.

Alice had been thin once, very thin. Michelle had seen pictures. Then she’d become pregnant, and then Michelle had arrived, but Alice had just kept growing and growing, and she was still growing. One day she wouldn’t be able to leave her room. Which would be fine with Alice. She didn’t want to leave her room.

Michelle watched her mother for a moment, watched her breathe, with an ear tuned to the muttering on the TV. Shopping, a shopping channel. Alice was shopping. And Alice was breathing. So she was okay. That was all Michelle was required to do, make sure Alice was still alive, and leave the TV on. Never turn off the TV. Alice would be spooked if she ever woke up and the TV was off, she’d scream and scream. It terrified her to think that someone had been in the room while she’d been sleeping. It terrified her to imagine what might have occurred.

Michelle left and moved across the landing to her own bedroom. She sat on the end of her bed, looked around at all the things she’d have to pack, things that not too long ago she had unpacked. She’d be packing things she had just unpacked. She wondered if the phone would ring. When the school called her father and told him that she’d missed her last two classes, he’d know exactly what had happened and where she was and what she was doing. She was a retard. She was home. She was packing.

But she wasn’t packing. Why wasn’t she packing? No one had told her to pack, like before. But now she was conditioned, she knew it was time to pack. But she wasn’t packing. Why wasn’t she packing? Because no one had told her to pack. Like before. But wasn’t she conditioned now? Didn’t she know it was time to pack? If so, why wasn’t she packing? Why was she still sitting on the end of her bed? She wasn’t packing.

Then it was dark.

It was dark, yet it hadn’t been dark before. But now it was dark. Michelle stood, walked around her bed to the nightstand, picked up the extension, dialed Ryan’s number. After five rings, voicemail picked up. Maybe five rings hadn’t been enough. Ryan hadn’t been able to reach the phone in time. She hung up and dialed again. Five rings. Voicemail. She hung up and tried again. Five rings. Voicemail. She hung up and left the room.

On her way downstairs she once again checked in on her mother. She was still asleep, the TV was still on. She hadn’t moved in however long it had been. How long had it been? It had been light outside then. Now it was dark. Where was Ryan? At the bookstore probably, or at least that’s where she wanted him to be. It would be perfect if he was at the bookstore and she went to him now and they spent the evening together at the bookstore. She left the house and walked quickly to the bus stop.

***

There were only two people in the bookstore, that fat boy Kyle and a person that Michelle assumed was a customer. A bell rang when the front door was opened, but Kyle didn’t notice her, he had his back to her. He was talking, and the customer was listening. He was talking a lot. She remembered him talking about fascists. She’d called Joe a fascist. She didn’t know what a fascist was, only that it was something bad. Kyle had given her that word.

She walked slowly through the store, peering behind every bookshelf, around every corner, checking to see if someone else was there. Checking to see if Ryan was there. She even glanced into the small office behind the counter, but there was no one inside. It was just Kyle and the customer, Kyle talking and the customer listening.

At the rear of the store, she lowered herself into one of the overstuffed easy chairs. She would wait. Ryan was coming, and she would wait there for him. Or maybe he wasn’t coming, but it didn’t matter, she’d wait there anyway. She could pack tomorrow.

The sound of a key in a lock. Michelle opened her eyes and sat up. The store was dark, the lights were off. She heard the front door open, the bell rang and someone slumped inside, footsteps heavy. Outside the moon hung full in a star-filled sky. The front door closed; the lock turned.

What had happened? She’d fallen asleep, and Kyle had closed the store and left her inside. She had been overlooked. And now someone was moving slowly through the store. Footsteps, and the sound of something being dragged. Michelle stood. What was this? This was a mistake, but not hers.

She said nothing, just waited and watched. She was curious. A figure stepped into view, in the gap between the shelves. A man, dimly lit, walking backwards. Pulling something. Grunting, heavy breathing. Michelle took several steps forward. If the man looked now, he’d see her there, a silhouette against the large back window. But he didn’t look, just kept dragging. The thing being dragged was in a sack. Those were legs sticking out. It was wearing shoes.

Strange. Now she wanted to ask, it was all so mysterious. But what time was it? Dark outside, it was late. She was late. Her father would have the entire F.B.I. out looking for her. Not really, but he’d be worried. He always was.

The figure was behind the counter now, struggling to open the office door. She moved through the store to the front door, tried the handle. Locked. Deadbolt. Behind her the office door opened, and then another door. Michelle couldn’t get out without a key. The man who’d just entered, he had a key. He’d have to let her out.

She stepped into the small office behind the counter. A desk, a wooden chair. The narrow door at the back was open. Downstairs was Walker’s den. Michelle moved to the top of the stairs, looked down. A light was on. She couldn’t see anyone, but the man had to be there, he couldn’t be anywhere else. And the man, it had to be Walker. Who else could it be? And Walker wouldn’t be angry that she was in his store. Of course not. He liked her.

Michelle descended the stairs. At the bottom, the bookshelves, old books, spines cracked and stained. The worn and faded oriental rug, the antique easy chair, the burgundy curtain. This was a great room, so comfortable. She could spend hours here but doubted Walker would let her. It was his hideaway, not hers. She would be intruding. She was already intruding.

Something was different. The corner. Before there hadn’t been shelves there, but now there were. Last time there’d been… she couldn’t remember. No, yes she could. Because there it was, next to the end table, a small dresser, now pulled out of the corner, its space now taken by shelves. Pulled out of the corner so that all of the shelves on that wall could be slid sideways into the corner.

But why? Michelle pivoted slowly, eyes following the shelves, and at the other end there was a door. A door where there hadn’t been a door before. Because before there’d been shelves there. The gap at one end of the shelves, where there’d been a dresser, replaced by at a gap at the other end, where there was now a door. A door that stood open, open and inward, into a room on the other side.

Michelle smiled. She’d been right.

She stepped across the room to the doorway, stood for a moment peering into the other room, the hidden room, everything else forgotten. She wasn’t a retard; she had known. The floor was dirt, packed but uneven. There were no shelves on the walls, they were bare. There was no furniture, just a bathtub. A bathtub, but nothing else that would be in a bathroom. Nothing else at all.

A man was lying on the floor. She took him in slowly. The soles of his shoes, then his dark suit pants, then his white dress shirt, then his face. He was unconscious. Or he was sleeping. His chest was moving, he was breathing. He was sleeping or unconscious. His eyes were closed.

A bathtub, and a man lying on the floor. And Ryan’s father standing over the man, holding a grey concrete block, his arms extended, the block out in front of him, directly above the man’s face. What was it? Some game? But it seemed dangerous. The block looked heavy. She knew they were heavy. She’d held one. She remembered that. She didn’t remember why.

“Walker,” she said.

His head snapped in her direction, his expression at first confusing. Was he unhappy to see her? He’d always been nice to her.

“Michelle,” he said, looking past her. “Are you here with Ryan?”

“I was waiting for Ryan,” she said. “Kyle locked me in. I didn’t want him to.”

“So you’re here alone?”

She nodded, and he smiled. So it was alright.

“I was right,” she said, “and you lied to me.”

“I lied to you?”

“About the basement.”

He sighed and lowered the concrete block, resting it against his thighs.

“Only a little bit,” he said. “I told you you were right, the basement had been bigger. But the part about my neighbor, yes, that wasn’t true.”

“Yeah.”

She remembered his words. Good eye, he’d said. That’d been nice, although she’d forgotten about that until now. There was a man lying on the dirt floor.

“Who’s that?” Michelle asked, her eyes on the soles of the man’s shoes. They were as good as new. Had he ever worn them before? Had he bought them today?

“That is Matt,” Walker said. “A friend of my wife’s.”

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked.

Walker made a face.

“Nothing much,” he said. “We’d been drinking. Well, he’d been drinking. Then he hit his head.”

Now Walker smiled again, and Michelle smiled too, even though there was a man on the floor. A man who’d hit his head. Must’ve hit it hard. He wasn’t moving.

“This is special, Michelle,” Walker was saying. “I would’ve come for you anyway. But instead you came to me. That just proves it. You and I, this was meant to happen.”

He looked down at Matt and again extended his arms, the concrete block out in front of him.

“But first,” he said, “there’s Matt to deal with.”

The block slipped from his fingers, and Matt’s legs jerked as his head disappeared, replaced by the block. Michelle’s body seemed to understand something that her mind didn’t. She slumped sideways against the frame of the open door. She felt weak all over. Her stomach felt sick.

“A bit blunt,” Walker said, nodding. “I know. That’s not normally how it works down here.”

“What just happened?” Michelle asked, taking a wobbly step forward.

“Don’t worry,” he laughed. “That won’t happen to you.”

Of course that wouldn’t happen to her, that hadn’t even occurred to her. But should it have occurred to her? Matt was dead. Ryan’s father had just killed Matt. Who was Matt?

“Matt has nothing to do with anything,” Walker said, as if he’d just read her thoughts. “He shouldn’t even be here. He’s only here because it’s convenient. The others let me down, sure, but still he’s unworthy of them. I’ll put him as far away from the others as I can.”

He gestured at the floor and then made another face. This one she recognized. Remorse, a word her father had used. Or was it resignation? He always helped her out, her father, naming things. But a lot of these faces looked the same.

“The last one?” Walker was telling her. “That girl from Laurelhurst? I thought I was getting better at choosing. But she was a nightmare.”

He shook his head and took a step toward her, rubbing his hands together. Cement dust drifted to the floor.

“But you,” he said, smiling warmly, now standing just a few feet in front of her. “It’ll be different with you.”

Why this feeling? Everything he was saying was nice. But her body wanted out. She could turn and run away now. Her body wanted her to turn and run away.

“I think you’re going to make it,” Walker said, nodding. “I think you’re going to live.”

But the front door was locked. And Walker had the key.

“You’re going to live.”

He punched her in the face as hard as he could.

She hit the ground like a wet towel.

A short distance to their left was the marketplace. To their right, perhaps a hundred yards away where the street ended, stood a tall metal and glass canopy from which a clock hung, its face a full white moon. They saw no one. No soldiers, no creatures. The street was empty.

The sidewalk on the other side of the street was covered, and they moved to it as quickly as they could. As they stepped into its shelter, back in the passage the pattern of gunfire changed. The gunman was no longer firing wildly in their direction. Now the shots were coming in bursts, with moments of silence between them. He was aiming, then firing, then aiming and firing again. The gunman had come across the creatures that Ryan and his parents had just stumbled past, and now he was clearing the passage. Perhaps this would buy them some time.

They veered awkwardly to their right, away from the marketplace. Ahead the covered sidewalk was clear, a tiny arch-shaped patch of daylight marking the end. They moved down it slowly, Ryan struggling to propel his share of his father’s weight forward. He looked down at his father’s feet, watched them press wearily against the ground, not helping at all.

Certainly they were doomed. Once the passage was clear, the gunman — fit and unwounded, bearing only the weight of his rifle — would catch up to them. And when he did, he would finish the job he had started.

The next burst of gunfire ended abruptly, and the clatter of metal striking stone echoed down the passage. Ryan stopped, catching his mother off guard.

“Ryan!” Jane exclaimed as she stumbled, struggling to hold her husband aloft. Walker’s injured arm was wrapped across her shoulders, and the torn T-shirt she’d wrapped around his wound was now saturated, his blood was streaming down her chest.

“Wait,” Ryan said, and before she could object, he released his father’s other arm and turned.

Dropping his backpack to the ground, he moved slowly away from his parents, his eyes focused on the passage across the street, his ears on full alert. Why had the gunfire stopped? Perhaps the gunman had finished clearing the passage and was now advancing toward them. Perhaps, in a second or two, he would emerge from the passage, and a second or two after that this would all come to an abrupt and brutal end.

Yet there was another possibility that Ryan considered more likely, and when a harrowing, agonized howl erupted from the passage, stopping Ryan in his tracks, he knew that his instincts had been correct. The gunman had been overwhelmed. Despite his weapon, one of the creatures had reached him, and this howl was the sound of a man in the midst of dying.

Ryan moved back across the street, arriving at the passage entrance just as the sound of the howl receded. The gunman had fled the passage and was most likely running back to the helicopter. Remembering the sound he’d heard after the gunfire had stopped — metal striking stone — Ryan guessed that the gunman had dropped his weapon and left it behind. A weapon that the creatures feared, that drove them to conceal themselves in tall grass and hide in dark passages. A weapon that they would need if they were going to live through this.

Ryan entered the passage at a sprint, his mother’s screams chasing him. The only creatures he saw were lying still, their faces torn away by automatic gunfire. He hoped, without knowing, that the creatures the gunman had failed to kill had pursued him out of the passage. It was possible that they hadn’t, that in a moment he would run right into them, but upon entering the passage he’d pushed doubt and fear aside, his father’s words driving him forward.

I need some help. I can’t take care of all three of us by myself.

Ryan stopped when he reached the rifle where it rested horizontally across the passage, like a finish line. He stooped down and picked up it up, his hand on the grip, avoiding the hot metal. Then he looked up.

Near where his father had been sitting just a few minutes before, he saw his mother’s backpack. It was where she’d left it when she’d taken out the T-shirt she’d used to dress Walker’s wound. He considered collecting it, but this idea was quickly swept away by the sound of gunfire from the marketplace and the quickening of the helicopter’s engine. Ryan turned and ran back down the passage.

When he emerged on the other side, he could hear the roar of the helicopter growing louder as it moved in his direction. He stepped out into the street and stood facing the marketplace, holding the rifle in one hand, his fingers wrapped around the grip, its stock propped against his thigh. Too energized to be afraid, he waited, transfixed, for the helicopter to appear.

The cabin moved into view, gliding about fifteen feet off the ground, then it stopped and turned, and the tail boom swung around behind it. Through the cabin window, Ryan could see the pilot struggling to control the craft with one hand while fighting off two creatures with the other. Outside the craft, several creatures clung to the landing skids, their dark mouths agape, their eyes wild with hunger. More creatures were tracking the copter from the ground, reaching up for it as if they could snatch it from the sky.

Shots rang out, and then the gunman stumbled into view on the ground below, ineffectually firing a pistol at a trio of creatures doggedly on his trail. With his free hand he was clutching a large wound on his throat, blood gushing out from between his fingers. When the loss of blood finally overwhelmed him, his eyes rolled back, his body slackened, and he dropped to the ground. The creatures that had been chasing him now fell on him, tearing away his clothes and ripping into his skin with their bare hands. They pulled his meat up into their mouths and reached in for more as they chewed.

A hand landed on Ryan’s shoulder. He jumped and instinctively clutched the rifle.

It was his mother.

“Ryan, thank god,” Jane said, out of breath. She looked down at the gun. “Where’d you get that?”

A muffled scream drew their attention back to the marketplace. Inside the helicopter, the pilot was losing his struggle with his attackers, and as they tore into his arm and shoulder with their teeth, he released the controls to engage in a futile effort to protect himself.

Abruptly the craft dropped toward the surface of the marketplace, then tilted sharply. The rear rotor hit the concrete first, disintegrating into a million pieces of steel shrapnel. The tail boom landed next, and as the helicopter, driven only by the main rotor, started to spin, the tail bent and then tore away, splitting the copter in two. Then a section of the main rotor struck the ground and snapped, and the cabin slumped out of the air and landed with a crash on its side.

Inside the cabin, the creatures who had subdued the pilot enjoyed their feast, unperturbed by the hard landing, and the creatures who’d been hanging from the skids climbed in to join them. The rest of the creatures divided themselves between the copter and the gunman on the ground. If any had noticed Ryan standing there in the street just a few yards away, none made any effort to pursue him. For the moment, they seemed satisfied.

“We need to get your father out of here,” Jane said, a tremor in her voice. Clearly she was affected by what she’d just witnessed, but now was not the time to process the shock and horror. They still needed to find a safe place to hide.

“Okay,” Ryan nodded.

“You’d better give me that,” Jane said, pointing at the rifle.

Ryan handed her the weapon, and as they stepped back into the covered sidewalk, she pulled the strap over her head and across her chest. They moved quickly to Walker, who sat awkwardly on the stone ground a few yards away, his legs twisted around each other, his head and neck pressed against a column. His eyes were half closed, and his chest was heaving as if he wasn’t getting enough air. Jane knelt down beside him.

Ryan reached down and picked up his backpack, once again noting its weight. Unzipping it, he reached in and, one by one, pulled out the half dozen books he’d been hauling since they’d fled the cabin by the lake, unceremoniously tossing them aside. After peering in at what little remained — a T-shirt, a sweater, a pair of jeans, some toiletries — he closed the bag and slung it over his shoulders.

“I know you’re hurt,” Jane was telling Walker, “but you need to help us out. You need to use your feet a little bit.”

Walker nodded weakly, and Jane helped him sit up. Ryan hunkered down under Walker’s uninjured arm, while on the other side Jane wrapped her arms around Walker’s waist. Together they rose to their feet and began to move slowly away from the marketplace, Walker using whatever strength he still possessed to keep himself upright.

They had found a lurching rhythm and were making decent progress when something caught hold of Ryan’s backpack and he found himself abruptly pulled out from under his father’s arm. Taken by surprise and unable to bear her husband’s weight, Jane fell sideways, crashing into a glass storefront and then to the ground with Walker on top of her.

Ryan twisted around and found himself confronted by a man roughly twice his size, a man with green skin and grey eyes, a man whose dark mouth hung open and from which an unholy growl emanated. A purple plaid pajama top hung from the man’s beefy frame; from the waist down, he was naked. One of his feet was bare and torn up; on the other he wore a slipper that looked like a bear claw. One of his ears was missing.

Behind the beefy man, Ryan could see several other creatures lumbering in his direction, some spilling out of the passage, others en route from the marketplace. Then, suddenly, Ryan felt himself nudged aside.

It was Jane, stepping in beside him, raising the rifle with its stock pressed against her shoulder, its muzzle inches from the beefy man’s forehead. A wave of concern drifted across the creature’s face, and its mouth closed slightly. The other creatures stopped in their tracks; a few even retreated, shuffling into passageways or taking shelter behind columns.

“I need you to run,” Jane told Ryan as calmly as she could.

“What?” Ryan exclaimed. Running didn’t make sense. They couldn’t run with Walker in tow.

“Run away,” Jane said. “To safety.”

Ryan glanced over his shoulder at his father, sprawled out unconscious on the ground.

“He’s not coming with us,” Jane said bluntly, her eyes focused on the beefy man’s forehead. “We tried to save him, but we can’t. And I don’t think he’d want us to die trying.”

The events of the last several minutes flashed through Ryan’s mind. The howl of the gunman as he was overtaken. The gunman on the ground minutes later, his entrails in the creatures’ greedy hands. The pilot’s face as chunks of his body were torn away. Ryan knew, all too explicitly, what would happen to his father if they left him behind.

“But–”

“Later, Ryan,” Jane cut in. “Later we can argue about it, and maybe you’ll hate me for it. But right now I need you to do what you’re told.”

Ryan inhaled deeply.

“Okay,” he said.

And then he ran.

Ryan’s boots were made for hiking on dirt not running on stone, and the sound they made as he sprinted down the covered sidewalk was soft. And this was the only sound he heard for several agonizingly long seconds, as he wondered where he was running to and what was happening behind him.

Suddenly the soft sound of his boots was overwhelmed by an explosion of gunfire. And then, as if on cue, two men appeared in front of him.

One of the men was older and large, muscular, with short-cropped white hair and features that seemed to have been drawn with a sharp pencil. The other was younger and smaller, and leaner, with thick black hair that appeared to have been styled by whatever pillow he’d last slept on.

Both men were carrying rifles.

“Wer schüsst do?” the white-haired one asked. “Ghöred die zu dir?”

Ryan was too startled and confused to explain to the man that he didn’t understand what he was saying. Ryan looked at the younger man, whose focus was up the covered sidewalk. The shooting continued, and Ryan listened for the sound of his mother’s voice — a scream, anything — but there was only gunfire.

“Allons-y,” the white-haired man said to the younger one. “Et souviens-toi, nous n’avons pas beaucoup de temps. Nous devons retourner au train.”

As the younger man stepped out into the street, his rifle out in front of him, the white-haired man’s thick hand dropped onto Ryan’s shoulder and gripped it.

“Bliib bi eus,” he said. “Du wirsch in Sicherheit sii.”

He pushed Ryan out in front of him, and together they advanced toward the marketplace, the younger man in front and Ryan in the middle. The white-haired man moved backwards, his eyes and rifle trained on the space behind them. They were in the street and exposed, but Ryan could see the sense in it. There would be no surprise attacks. Any creature that emerged from the shadows would have several yards to cover before it could lay a hand on any of them. The two men had the area around them covered, with Ryan tucked safely between them.

The younger man opened fire almost immediately, taking down one by one the creatures that were lurching across the street toward Jane. His shots were reminiscent of the gunman’s, short bursts directed at the creatures’ heads. Nothing like the panicked gunfire they could hear coming from the covered sidewalk.

The white-haired man’s rifle remained poised but silent; for the moment, the street behind them was clear.

They found Jane crouched over Walker, firing wildly at creatures that were bearing down on her. Turning her head in their direction, it seemed for a moment that she might turn her gun on them as well. Then she saw Ryan and her features relaxed. Her son was alive and unharmed, and these men were neither creatures nor soldiers. The nightmare wasn’t over, but it had softened, if only a little bit, if only for now.

The white-haired man made a small gesture with his head, and the younger man nodded and moved into the covered sidewalk. Taking a position over Jane, he raised his rifle and opened fire. Each of the man’s shots struck a creature in the head, stopping them instantly, sending them collapsing to the ground, and within seconds the sidewalk was clear.

“Vous allez bien?” the younger man asked, hunkering down beside Jane, smiling inexplicably.

“What?” Jane asked, trembling.

“Anglais?” the man said.

“What?”

“You speak English?”

The white-haired man moved in from the street and placed a hand on Ryan’s shoulder, a protective and reassuring gesture.

“Yes,” Jane said. “English.”

The younger man’s smile widened. He gave her his hand.

“Come with me if you want to live,” he said, and then he burst out laughing and looked up at the older man. “J’ai toujours voulu pouvoir dire ça.”

The white-haired man grimaced.

“Forcément,” he said. Then he asked Jane, “Is it just the three of you?”

“Yes,” Jane said, rising unsteadily to her feet.

“And him,” the man said, nodding at Walker. “What happened to him?”

“He’s been shot,” Jane said.

“Not bit or scratched,” Ryan interjected, suddenly reminded of his conversation with the soldier in the mountains. Mohler, his name had been. “Just shot.”

Just shot. The preferred injury in this new world, better than a bite or a scratch.

“My name’s Harry,” the white-haired man said as he slung his rifle over his shoulder and behind his back.

He reached down and grabbed Walker by his uninjured arm and pulled the unconscious man to his feet. The weight that Ryan and Jane had struggled to bear seemed like nothing to Harry.

Ryan looked up at his mother.

“I’m Jane,” she told Harry. “This is my son Ryan, and that’s my husband Walker.”

The younger man was still at her side, still smiling unaccountably. Unaccountably, because what was there to smile about?

“Nice to meet you all,” Harry said perfunctorily, shifting Walker’s weight with a shrug. “That’s Nicolas–”

“Nic,” the other man quickly interjected.

“Nic,” Harry corrected, with a weary glance at his comrade. “And now we know each other’s names, which might come in handy on our way.”

“On our way?” Jane asked.

“Yes,” Harry said. “I assume you’re coming with us.”

Jane took a moment to consider their situation. Their future without these men, whoever they were, promised to be little more than a bleaker version of their past. And anyway, her husband was already draped across Harry’s shoulders.

“Of course,” Jane said.

“Great,” Harry said, again perfunctorily.

“Where to?” Jane asked.

“The station. We’ve got a train to catch.”

“Good morning,” he said, setting his own coffee cup down and taking the seat across from her. He lit a cigarette.

She looked up at him and smiled weakly. Her eyes were glassy and ringed with dark circles; her skin was pale and waxy. She had drunk herself to sleep last night, perched in front of the television long after he’d gone to bed.

“What’s the good news?” he asked, nodding at the paper.

“There is no good news,” Jane informed him. “We’re still at war, the economy’s still screwed. They still haven’t found that Laurelhurst girl. And if she’s like the others, I guess they never will. Plus, I’m hungover.”

“Of course you’re hungover,” Walker said, smiling. He spoke to her as if she were a child. As if she’d eaten too much candy and now had a stomach ache. Of course she had a stomach ache. “What time did you come to bed?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “It was dark, I remember that.”

He nodded, took a drag on his cigarette. The sections of the paper that Jane wasn’t reading were on the chair between them. He reached over and grabbed a piece at random, then opened it on the table. When, after a moment, he looked up, he found her watching him.

“Walker, I–” she began.

“What?” he asked, inadvertently cutting her off.

She went silent and lowered her eyes.

“I have something to tell you,” she said after a moment, “but it’s not going to be easy.”

Walker sat back and flicked his cigarette, sending a tiny ball of ash to the floor, and smiled knowingly. It was going to be one of those conversations. Jane, who struggled with self-control on her best days, had betrayed even her own loose standards of behavior. And she needed Walker to hear her out, to listen and forgive.

“Okay,” he said, closing the newspaper he’d only barely begun reading.

“Can I have one of those?” she asked, eyes on his cigarette.

Walker paused, suddenly taking her more seriously. Then he pulled the pack out of his breast pocket and handed it to her. He followed with the lighter.

“Is it that bad?” he asked. In the fifteen years he’d known Jane, he’d only seen her smoke half a dozen times, and what had come after had never been good.

She lit her cigarette, inhaled deeply, and blew out a thick cloud of smoke.

“I have a problem at work,” she said simply.

“Okay,” Walker said again, “but that’s nothing new.”

“No,” Jane said. She took a second drag on her cigarette and then punched it out in the ashtray. “But this problem… Well, it’s more like trouble. I’m in trouble at work. I mean, I’m in trouble generally.”

“Because of work?” Walker asked.

“Yes. But I’m in trouble everywhere.”

Walker let a moment of silence pass, hoping that Jane would jump in and fill it. When she didn’t, his lips turned up into a cold grin. And when he spoke again, there was impatience in his voice. This was no way to spend a Saturday morning.

“Jane,” he began. “I’m not planning to sit here for the rest of the day. Eventually I’ll need to get up and go somewhere else. So if you’ve got something to tell me — which, according to you, you do — then please get on with it.”

“Do you remember Matt Pullman?” she asked quickly.

“No,” Walker said after a moment. “Should I?”

“You’ve never met him,” Jane said. “But I told you about him. We used to date in college, and a year and a half ago he came to me looking for a job.”

Now Walker remembered. Jane had spoken to him about Matt over dinner one evening, wearing her usual weary frown and with a glass of wine in front of her. Matt had appeared in her office that morning, looking smart in an expensive suit, résumé in hand. He’d been in New York, he told her, where he’d had a successful run on Wall Street. But now he wanted to come home.

It would be awkward, she’d told Walker that evening, putting an old boyfriend forward for a job, but she felt she owed him. In college Matt had been handsome and charming, a resounding success in his personal life. But as a student he’d been undisciplined and scatterbrained, and the more demanding their work had become, the more quickly he’d begun to fall behind. Initially Jane had done what she could to help, but when her own work had begun to suffer, she’d realized that she was tethered to a hopeless case. Finally, after a year together, she cut him loose. A month later, he left college, and she didn’t see or speak with him again until he appeared in her office that afternoon.

“Yes,” Walker said. “I remember Matt.”

“Well,” Jane said, her eyes down. “We had lunch together today. We have lunch together every so often. It’s not unusual. But today he had something to tell me.”

She was sitting forward, leaning with her forearms on the table’s edge, holding her coffee cup in both hands. There was absolutely no strength in her; she was all weakness and submission.

“Matt was hired as a trader,” Jane went on, “and as far as I knew, everything was going well. No complaints from his department head or his coworkers, and when I spoke to Matt, he seemed to be doing great. I’d even been feeling good about it, thinking that not only had I helped out an old friend, but I’d brought a real contributor to the company.”

Walker looked at the discarded cigarette and braced himself. Jane was in trouble. Was he too?

“And then what?” he prompted.

Jane looked up and met her husband’s eyes for the first time in several minutes. She retrieved her cigarette from the ashtray and relit it.

“To begin with,” she said, smoke spilling out of her mouth and nose, “Matt’s résumé was a lie. It said that after he left the University of Washington, he moved to New York and enrolled at NYU, eventually graduating from the Stern School of Business. In fact, after leaving the UW, he went back to Bellevue, moved in with his parents, and then entered the two-year business program at BCC. He did alright there, and after graduating with an associates degree, he left for New York to try and get a job on Wall Street.

“The big New York firms didn’t want him, of course. Even here in Seattle, I won’t look twice at a candidate with only an associates degree. So this is when he decided to put his real assets to work for him. He fabricated a new résumé and used his charm and good looks to sell it. He was smart enough not to claim too much, nothing that’d raise any eyebrows, nothing they’d want to look into too deeply. Just a four-year degree and an MBA from the University of Washington, the school he’d walked away from. And once he got in the door, he made it all about him, what a great guy he was, so handsome and personable. He may have been clueless about financial services, but he knew the type, knew how to play the part. And eventually someone hired him.

“Then something interesting happened. They started him in a back office job, grunt work but it’s where all the trades are processed, and suddenly he got it. All the stuff that hadn’t made sense to him at all at the UW, that had barely made sense to him at community college — suddenly, in practice, it became perfectly clear. Seeing it action, working the computers and processing the trades with his own hands, he got it. But unfortunately, just when he was feeling comfortable and imaging himself as a trader, his bullshit résumé caught up with him. He’d been on the job just six months when they kicked him out the door.”

Walker thought he could see where this was heading, felt his patience bottoming out.

“So you hired an old friend with a padded résumé,” he said, grinding out his cigarette. “And today you learned the truth. But you didn’t know any of this when you hired him.” Then, “You didn’t know any of this, right?”

“No, I didn’t know any of this when I hired him” Jane said, shaking her head as much as she could, given her hangover. “Please, Walker, I need you to listen. Trust me, I’d rather not tell you the whole story, but I have to.”

Walker lit another cigarette, nodded.

“Next job he applied for,” Jane went on, “he left off the back office job, and the rest of it he fabricated upward, making himself an experienced trader. Again, nothing too good to be true, but he was sure his time would be limited, and he wanted to be where the action was for as long as he could get away with it. It went like it had before. His résumé got him through the door, then his personality got him a job. Next thing he knew, he was a Wall Street trader.”

Jane took a final pull on her cigarette, the ball of glowing tobacco singeing the filter, then she crushed it out.

“Do you know what naked short selling is?” she asked her husband.

Walker laughed, a sickened chuckle.

“Of course not,” he said.

“Well, Matt didn’t either,” she said, “not until he worked in that back office. And he brought this knowledge to his new job as a trader. This time, he wanted to get as much in his bank account as he could before HR found him out. So, what he’d do is, he’d pick out a small company and launch what’s called a bear raid. He’d buy a bunch of options to sell ‘x’ number of shares of the company’s stock at a certain low price by a certain date. A crazy price, maybe half the current trading price. Then he’d turn around and sell huge quantities of the company’s shares — shares he couldn’t deliver, that he hadn’t even borrowed — while at the same time spreading negative rumors about the company, all of which would cause the share price to drop dramatically. The shares were counterfeit, but it didn’t matter. It’s possible to trade more shares of a company than actually exist.

“So let’s say the stock starts at $60 dollars a share. He buys the right to sell a million shares at $30 on a certain date. Then the bear raid begins. If he plays the game right, once that date rolls around, the stock might be worth just $10. He’s just made $20 million for his company and earned himself a hell of a bonus.”

“That’s madness,” Walker observed as he took a sip from his coffee cup. He made a face as he swallowed, the coffee now cold and bitter.

“That’s Wall Street,” Jane said with a shrug. “Which is why Matt got away with it for so long. He was making his company so much money that they never bothered to look at his résumé again.”

Something occurred to Jane, a flicker across her features. Walker sensed that her confession was about to turn into a lecture.

“Okay,” she began, “this was after Matt’s time in New York, but do you remember Bear Stearns?”

Walker shook his head disdainfully.

“In March 2008,” she continued, “someone bet almost $2 million on options that the company’s share price would collapse — from $60 a share to less than $30 — in nine days or less. A crazy bet, right?”

Walker barely understood what she was talking about.

“Then suddenly the stock started trading like crazy,” Jane went on, “first a few hundred thousand shares, then a few million, then several million, mostly phantom shares that were never delivered. Then the negative rumors started, complete bullshit, but it got on TV, and by that Saturday, the Fed was offering the company to JPMorgan for $2 a share. Now the $30 bet on a $60 share seemed like genius. In a week, the guys who’d gambled on $30 had become $250 million richer.”

Walker suppressed a groan. For him, his indulgences notwithstanding, the beauty of life was received through the artistry of writing, the books he bought and sold, the people who came to him, who loved books too. Yet he had tethered his existence to a woman who hadn’t read a proper novel in years, who daily navigated the hollow, intangible world of high finance. What on earth did this woman — his wife, the mother of his child — actually do?

But he couldn’t question her living without feeling hypocritical. When he’d been forced to leave teaching, her world of financial make-believe had been his safety net. He owed to her generous salary his bookstore and the freedom it provided him to pursue his interests. The house he lived in, the clothes he wore, the food he ate, it was all thanks to her lucrative yet impenetrable profession.

And this was the only reason he cared about this ‘trouble’ that Jane was in. Trouble for her meant trouble for him.

“I’d like you to get to the point,” Walker said calmly, yet with the unmistakable hint of a threat.

“Okay,” Jane said, swallowing hard. “So Matt gets away with it for much longer than he thought he would. He gets away with it because he’s making his company money, not to mention earning a tidy bonus. It’s only in 2005, when the SEC starts taking action against naked short selling, that HR comes to him, waves his phony résumé in his face, and suggests that he make a quiet exit. Matt’s not too worried because he’s been making money too fast to spend it: his last year there his bonus was $600 thousand. So he leaves and spends the next few years traveling around, Europe, the Caribbean, all the obvious places.

“Then, when the money starts running out and he’s trying to figure out how he’ll ever find a job again, a gift lands in his lap. A friend of a friend of a friend tells him that his ex is head of human resources at Klein Faliszek in Seattle. And a couple weeks later he’s standing in my office with another fake résumé. He says he was ready to tell me the truth if I checked up on him, or at least some version of the truth, but I didn’t so he didn’t. Not until today.

“Today he comes to me and tells me everything that I’ve just told you. Then he reveals that for the last year and a half, he’s been naked short selling at Klein Faliszek, killing small companies by selling shares he doesn’t have, spreading negative rumors, then selling options for shares he does have for ten times what they’re worth, making big money for Klein Faliszek and raking in big bonuses.

“Problem is, at some point his skills started failing him. A couple of his assaults didn’t pay off, he ended up losing a bunch of Klein Faliszek’s money, and he got properly chastened. But did he let up? No. He tried it again, only this time he went all in, picked three companies and let the trades fly. He was determined to get back on the company’s good side. Instead Klein Faliszek ended up on the hook for about $4 billion.”

At this, Walker’s eyes went wide.

“Exactly,” Jane said, seeing his expression. “It’s more than Klein Faliszek is worth.”

Walker didn’t know that, of course, just that $4 billion was an unimaginable amount of money. He couldn’t imagine four billion anything, much less dollars.

“So today he tells me that I need to help him,” Jane continued. “I need to help him, or I’m going down with him. He’ll tell the company — and the police, of course, because it’s inevitable that they’ll get involved. He’ll tell them all that I knew his résumé was phony but I hired him anyway. He’ll tell them that I knew what he was up to the whole time, and that I profited from it.”

Now Jane lowered her eyes, and Walker understood that she had arrived at the hardest part.

“And he’ll tell them that we were sleeping together.”

Walker’s fingers found the edge of the table, as if he were bracing himself. He watched Jane’s body slump, her shoulders edge forward, her eyes focus on the rim of her coffee cup. She wasn’t done speaking; there was one thing left to say.

“Because we were,” Jane said. “We are. We are sleeping together. It’s the only thing that’s true.”

Walker stood. This could really be it, and he had no idea what to do about it. His safety net had become the noose around his neck, the needle in his vein. Jane couldn’t help Matt — she was human resources, and they were talking about $4 billion — so he would drag her down with him. Then the police would come and take everything away.

He turned and stepped through the sliding-glass door into the house. He was standing in the dining room, trying to steady himself, when at the other end of the house the front door opened. He caught his breath: they were already here. But it was only Ryan and Michelle, his son leading the girl in by the hand.

Ryan squinted at his father’s obvious agitation, but Michelle just smiled. It was a dim, innocent smile — had Ryan still not noticed that there was something wrong with her? — but seeing it, Walker felt something inside him shift.

“Hi guys,” he said, suddenly regaining his composure. He shook his head and laughed. “You startled me.”

Ryan was looking beyond Walker.

“What’s wrong with Mom?” he asked.

Walker looked over his shoulder. Jane was holding her face in her hands, sobbing, trembling.

“She had a hard week,” Walker said, watching Michelle as her grey-blue gaze drifted around the room, enthralled, as if she’d never been there before, but of course she had. “Best just to let her work it out. What are you two up to?”

“Nothing,” Ryan shrugged. “You know.”

“Sure,” Walker said, nodding. Kids were always up to nothing. “I’m headed for the bookstore. Anyone want to join me?”

Ryan looked at Michelle, a question. She nodded.

“Great,” Walker said.

He stepped past them into the foyer and grabbed his jacket, Ryan and Michelle following. He was still on edge and desperate not to let it show. This would help, getting away from Jane, spending time at the store.

Outside on the curb, as Walker fished in his pocket for his keys, Ryan tugged at his father’s sleeve.

“Are you sure Mom’s alright?” the boy asked. “Is it okay just to leave her here?”

Walker put a hand on his son’s shoulder.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m sure it’s okay to leave her here.”

Ryan nodded and stepped away.

Walker reached out for the driver’s-side door, the key clenched between his thumb and forefinger. Suddenly he stopped, watching his hand. It was shaking.

This was it. This was the test he had been anticipating for years. It had arrived from a wholly unexpected direction, but this was it. Either his strength would prevail and he would act to save himself and his family, or everything he’d spent so much time and energy and heart building up would crumble.

He stared at his hand, glared at it, willing it to steady. The late winter wind wrapped itself around him, and the entire city seemed to go silent. Then the tremors in his hand ceased, and he unlocked the door.

This was it.

Her legs didn’t want it, that was for sure. The long walk out of the forest and then through the city had worn down her strength to nearly nothing. If Walker hadn’t been pulling her along, his hand tight on her elbow, practically holding her up, she might’ve just stopped right there.

And her heart didn’t want it either. Ever since she had learned that her poor judgment and selfishness had undermined everything that she had sacrificed for the sake of her family’s prosperity, she had wanted to slide into a drunken hole and die. It had been Walker who had insisted that they flee, Walker who had demanded that the family stay together at all costs. Her shame was of no consequence to him; she would have to live with it, he had said.

She could imagine herself breaking Walker’s grip and sinking to her knees on the stone-paved bridge as he and Ryan continued on. There would be gratitude in her muscles and bones, and resignation in her heart. The creatures, distracted by her sacrifice, would lose sight of her husband and son, and as they fell on her, to beat her to death or tear her to shreds, she would watch as Walker and Ryan disappeared into the heart of Bern. In her last moments of life, she would pray for their safety. She would feel for an instant that she had somehow made up for the mistake that had brought them there.

Her chest heaving, her head swimming, Jane watched as Ryan took a moment to peer over the edge at the river below. When he turned to look at her, she tried to read his emotions, seeing a little bit of everything there: fear, determination, confusion, heartache, love. It was the full complexity of life, still alive in her son, while her own feelings had been whittled down to a desire for tragic redemption. It was somehow encouraging. When she saw that Ryan seemed concerned about her, and that he was about to speak, she cut him off.

“I’m okay, honey,” she said weakly. “I’m okay.”

On the other side, Walker motioned for them to stop, and together they turned their heads. There was no way back, that was for sure. The creatures had made it halfway across the bridge, the numberless horde filling its width.

The way forward presented them with several choices. Directly in front of them was the main road, that led up and then curved out of sight to the left. Where it began, two smaller roads split off, each seeming to also run upward, parallel to the main road on either side of it. Two routes led down, presumably to the river. One was a covered staircase; the other yet one more road, this one appearing to curve back under the bridge.

All of the streets in this area were paved with stones, large, uniform and rectangular, yet not quite what Jane would’ve called bricks. The closely-packed buildings were just three or four stories tall, with stone façades, shuttered windows, and sloping red-tiled roofs. Everything was so old, so thoroughly uncontemporary. Were it not for the countless parked cars, Jane might’ve concluded that — on top of everything else — she and her family had been transported back in time.

“We can’t go down,” Walker was saying to Ryan, his back to his wife. “We’re looking for high ground.”

Jane knew that Walker had long ago decided that she was unworthy of consultation, and she would’ve been unable to make a convincing case that he was wrong. Each step of the way, with each challenge they had confronted, she’d found herself unable to do more than follow her husband’s lead. Furthermore, Walker had been the target of her fear and frustration. This was unfair, she knew, but she had to release her despair somehow, and she knew that he could take it. He was strong; she wasn’t. It was that simple.

Ignored by her son and husband, she turned around and monitored the slow progress of the creatures across the bridge. She hated, yet was also fascinated by, the way they looked at her, the madness in their eyes that seemed connected to just one thought: satisfying their hunger.

“Do you see anything?” she heard Walker ask Ryan. “Any movement? Check the shadows.”

“I don’t see anything,” Ryan said after a moment.

Jane singled out one creature — a woman in an olive green rain jacket, dark blue jean and sneakers, a brown purse still somehow slung over her shoulder — and wondered what it would take to bring her down. She recalled what Ryan had said, that he’d hit one in the head with a heavy stick, yet the creature had resumed its attack. What would it take?

“We’ll follow one of the smaller roads,” Walker decided, and now he turned to Jane. “Come on,” he said, once again grabbing her arm and pulling her forward.

They moved quickly off the main road to their right, then turned onto a narrow road that proceeded upward at an even grade. The façades on the right were lit up by the sun, a narrow covered sidewalk running underneath them. The road itself was immersed in shadow and appeared clear as far as the eye could see. The creatures that had pursued them across the bridge were now out of sight. Jane felt thankful for the creatures’ slowness, for this moment of peace.

“To the sidewalk,” Walker ordered. “We’ll be able to conceal ourselves.”

The covered sidewalk was cool and quiet. Where columns stood to support the structure above, the ceiling was low and arched. The windows and doors of the shops they passed were intact; apparently there had been no looting. Occasionally a passage appeared to one side, extending perpendicularly to the sidewalk to the next road over. They approached these passages cautiously, but each one was empty, and there were no sounds coming to them from the other end. Behind them it was also quiet; evidently they had left their pursuers behind.

Eventually, the road narrowed further, and the covered sidewalk ended. Up ahead was a wide street that they would have to cross if they were to continue in this direction; its surface was asphalt, into which narrow rails had been laid. Across the street, beyond a wide archway in the ground floor of a tall building, the road they were on continued.

Arriving at the street, they stood with their backs to the wall and peered around the corner in both directions. To the left the street rose slightly then disappeared around a curve; on the right was a bridge, significantly longer and higher than the one they’d crossed.

“Do you hear that?” Walker asked, his gaze shifting upward.

Jane and Ryan watched him, their ears alert. She couldn’t hear anything, and from his expression it appeared that Ryan couldn’t either. But then the sound of a distant motor reached her, not the sound of a car or plane, but the familiar machine gun thudding of a helicopter. As they stood there, the sound grew louder, the helicopter approaching.

“It must be the army,” Walker said, searching the skies.

Instinctively, Jane turned and peered down the road they’d just walked up, her eyes searching the shadows and doorways. Then there it was, standing half obscured behind one of the columns along the covered sidewalk. This one was a man with short hair, middle-aged, dressed in the long-sleeved shirt and thigh-length shorts of a cyclist. His eyes were trained on the sky.

Jane shuddered. Surely they had walked right past him. Had he been hiding, like the ones by the bridge? If so, then what had prevented him also realizing that they were no threat? Why hadn’t he gone after them too? Perhaps seeing them in the dimly-lit covered sidewalk, he simply hadn’t been sure.

“There’s one behind us,” Jane said softly.

Walker turned and looked, and nodded.

“Keep your eye on him,” he said. “We need to wait for this helicopter.”

“What if he’s not the only one?” Jane asked, a little bit louder.

“Just watch him,” Walker said sternly.

“What if there are more–?”

Jane yelped, cut off in midsentence as Walker reached out and grabbed her by the back of the neck. His fingernails dug into her skin as he pulled her toward him. From behind he wrapped his arm around her throat, his forearm crushing her larynx. Then he leaned in, his lips just an inch from her ear.

“Jane,” he whispered angrily. “I need you to shut up.”

They couldn’t see it, but from the sound of it, the helicopter seemed to be hovering somewhere nearby. In her husband’s grip, Jane kept her eyes on the cyclist. He still hadn’t noticed them, or perhaps for the moment he was more concerned about the copter.

The cyclist’s skin was less green that the others’, his eyes less cloudy. Had it not been for the stoned look on his face, the dull and inhuman concentration, she might not have known for sure that he was one of them.

Then there was automatic gunfire, bullets raining down from the sky, and Jane watched as a trail of wounds made their way up the cyclist’s body, perforating him from crotch to forehead. He remained standing, his body jerking violently, until the head shot brought him down.

How had they known? Jane wondered, her mind racing. How had they known for sure?

Ryan looked up at his father, panic in his eyes.

“Dad–”

“They’re clearing the streets,” Walker said. “We need to move.”

He released Jane’s neck and grabbed her arm, and before she could protest they were moving across the street. On the other side, as they traversed the unusually wide sidewalk between them and the safety of the archway, Jane risked a glance behind them. The helicopter was drifting slowly over the rooftops toward the road they’d just evacuated. In seconds it would be hanging over the spot where they’d been standing.

In the archway, Jane collapsed to her knees, Walker’s hand still on her arm.

“We need to keep moving,” Walker insisted.

“We’re safe here,” Jane said, breathing heavily. “In the road, we’ll be out in the open.”

Walker grabbed Jane by both shoulders and roughly lifted her to her feet. He stood with his face just inches from hers.

“I will leave you here,” he threatened. “I will take Ryan and leave you here to die.”

In an instant, it all flashed through Jane’s mind.

The cautious approach at the art museum, the charm and easy smile that had drawn her in; the first date, a picnic at Volunteer Park; the first kiss she’d waited weeks for; the tour of the school where he’d worked, the classroom full of young people who seemed to adore him; the promotion at her firm that they’d celebrated with dinner on the waterfront; the proposal of marriage that she’d been hoping for but that had still taken her by surprise; the long engagement, wedding plans that felt like they would never be realized; the wedding itself, splendid and strange; the speech at the wedding dinner, a startling proclamation of love and dedication in front of a hundred guests that had left her sobbing.

Another promotion with a raise that had allowed him to quit teaching and open his bookstore; Ryan’s birth, and the house she’d bought in which to raise him; the long work days, sometimes even on the weekends; the growing sense of isolation from her own family; the feeling that when they were all together she was watching them from a distance, that she was sacrificing her happiness for theirs; the affair with Glenn; the guilt and self-loathing that she had projected back on them as resentment; the affair with Adam; the drinking that had snuck up on her, until waking up without at least a slight hangover was a noteworthy event; the affair with Matt; the fabricated resume; the confession; the police visit.

It had all been leading to this moment and these words:

I will leave you here to die.

Jane pushed Walker away. His hands slipped off her shoulders. Her throat tightened. She thought she might retch. She glared at her husband, her eyes narrow slits. She licked her lips.

“I love you too, Walker,” she said.

A wave of noise and wind filled the archway as the army copter dropped down into the street they had just crossed, hanging in the air just a few feet off the pavement. The side door was open, and a soldier sat there, one leg out on the skid, a rifle held firmly in both hands. Seeing them, the soldier spoke urgently into a microphone under his chin. In the cockpit, the pilot nodded, and the tip of the soldier’s rifle began to ascend.

They didn’t wait to see what would happen next. Emerging from the other side of the archway in a sprint, they found themselves on a road without covered sidewalks, fully exposed. Up ahead was a large clearing, beyond which the road narrowed and the covered sidewalks resumed. They had some time before the helicopter would be above them again, before it could clear the building above the archway and continue its pursuit. Perhaps not enough time — perhaps just seconds — but they were committed now. They would have to take the chance.

The clearing was a giant marketplace, the size of two football fields end to end, which appeared to stretch across the width of the city. On some days it would’ve undoubtedly been filled with stalls, occupied by merchants selling regional meats and cheeses and arts and crafts, but today it was open and empty. At one end loomed a large, magisterial building, which Jane took to be the building that housed Switzerland’s government. In the middle distance stood a Starbucks, an incongruous sight in a setting otherwise awash in antique authenticity.

They were running in a line, Walker in front, Ryan in the middle, Jane at the rear. Behind them, the sound of the helicopter became clear and unmuffled. Jane didn’t need to look over her shoulder to know that it had dropped down into the street behind them, and that the soldier with the rifle now had an unobstructed bead on their backs. They could only hope that he would wait until he was closer to open fire, which might give them the time they needed to duck into the covered sidewalk ahead. Or maybe he would even realize that they weren’t creatures but humans, and his conscience would prevent him from gunning them down.

The first bullet struck the ground just inches from Jane’s foot. She felt a sharp sting as tiny shards of pavement struck her calves. As two more bullets hit the ground in front of her, she fought the urge to drape herself over her son and pull them both to the ground, knowing that it would be futile, that she would be sacrificing them both. Their only chance remained the covered sidewalk.

Then, as she watched, Walker’s shoulder popped open, and a cloud of scarlet appeared in the air in front of her and Ryan, spattering them. Somehow he managed to stay on his feet, although his pace slowed, and as the helicopter roared over them, first strafing them with its enormous shadow, then immersing them in the din of its engine and rotors, Jane saw an opportunity to reach safety. For the moment the gunman was facing away from them. He wouldn’t have another clear shot at them until the helicopter was able to pivot around. If they could just make it to the covered sidewalk they’d be safe. The road ahead was too narrow for the helicopter to follow.

Jane wiped Walker’s blood away from her eyes and grabbed Ryan by the collar of his jacket.

“Help me with your father!” she yelled.

Oddly the boy didn’t seem frightened, or perhaps the level of fear he was experiencing was so new and overwhelming his face didn’t know how to register it. He nodded quickly and they rushed to Walker, who was staggering, dazed, across the marketplace, his eyes wet with tears, his features frozen in shock. Jane grabbed one of his arms and Ryan grabbed the other, and together they pulled him forward. The tail of the helicopter swung around over their heads, the strong draft of its rotor nearly knocking them off their feet.

They entered the covered sidewalk, moved along it for several yards, then turned into the opening of a passage that led through the block to the next road. They lowered Walker to the ground, his back against a wall.

“Go watch,” Jane told her son. “Let me know if it lands.”

Ryan nodded, moved to the end of the passage, and peered around the corner.

Jane took a moment to examine Walker’s wound. There was a hole in the front as well, just under his collarbone. The bullet had passed through, which she thought was good, but he was losing a lot of blood. She slipped off her backpack, opened it, and pulled out a T-shirt, which she ripped along the seam, forming a long strip of fabric.

“You’re going to have to lift your arm,” she told Walker.

He looked at her through heavy-lidded eyes, with no sign of comprehension.

“Ryan?!” she called out, her own voice barely audible over the noise of the helicopter, still lurking somewhere nearby.

“He’s still in the air!” Ryan reported.

“Come here!”

In seconds the boy was at her side.

“I need to tie off your father’s wound,” she said, “or he’s going to bleed to death. Can you lift his arm?”

Ryan responded by grabbing Walker’s wrist and pulling his arm roughly into the air. As Walker howled in pain, his eyes suddenly wide, Jane slipped the torn T-shirt under his arm and brought the ends up over his shoulder, repeating the motion until his wound was tightly wrapped. Then she tied the ends together, and Ryan released his arm.

Jane hunkered down in front of her husband.

“Walker?”

His eyes were closed, his face clenched. He didn’t seem to hear her.

“Walker?” she said again, this time louder. “Walker, we can’t stay here. I need you to get up.”

Still he didn’t seem to hear. The pain was too intense, the shock all-consuming.

I will leave you here, she wanted to tell him.

The sound of the helicopter was fading, but not because it was moving away. The thwack of its rotor blades was slowing, the roar of its engine diminishing. She looked up at Ryan and saw that he heard it too. His eyes were wide and focused on the light at the end of the passage, the corner around which he’d just been peering. She thought she knew what had happened, but she needed confirmation.

“Go look,” she told Ryan.

Instantly he moved away to investigate.

“Walker, you need to get up,” she said to her husband, her voice angry and urgent. “Get up!”

“They’ve landed!” Ryan exclaimed in a loud whisper.

She could imagine what he was seeing: the helicopter parked on the marketplace, the soldier with the rifle stepping down onto the pavement, cautiously surveying the scene before advancing.

“Walker!” she barked at her husband.

Still he didn’t seem to hear, and there was no way that she and Ryan could carry him to safety.

I will take Ryan and leave you here to die.

No, she wouldn’t. As horribly as he’d been treating her, as contentious as their relationship had become, he had done everything he could to keep them together. She was the reason they had fled. She wouldn’t leave him behind. She couldn’t.

She looked at the T-shirt wrapped around his shoulder, at the spot of blood just below his collarbone. Then she balled up her fist and drove it as hard as she could into his exit wound.

His eyes went wide, and his body tensed. He opened his mouth, about to scream, but she silenced him with the palm of her hand. With her free hand, she grabbed him under his uninjured shoulder and pulled him upward. He leapt to his feet as if his body was loaded with springs.

“Come on!” she called to Ryan.

In a split second, her son was on Walker’s other side, and together they rushed deeper into the passage. Only then did Jane discover that they’d been sharing the passage with other fearful forms — not humans, but creatures huddled against walls and in doorways. In the dim light, she caught flashes of green skin and grey eyes, lips caked with a dark substance that could’ve only been blood. These were the former residents of Bern, the instincts they had once possessed now slowly seeping back into their diseased brains. Now they knew to hide. Soon they would learn to flee. Eventually they would learn to fight back. And then what?

When the gunman behind them opened fire, they were already almost halfway through, and Jane began to wonder if there was a drink somewhere at the end of all this. Maybe, she thought, as bullets crashed against concrete, sparked on metal, and shattered glass, they’d have a moment for some looting, and she’d find a bottle of wine. As the din of the gunfire tore at her ears, she imagined herself standing in front of shelves laden with dark bottles. And as she readied herself for the sting of a bullet piercing her skin, she picked out the most expensive bottle she could find.

She would open it and pour it into a wide-brimmed glass. She would swirl it around and take a sniff, and smile. The she would take a sip, just a sip, letting fragrance mingle with flavor, deciding if she should move forward with this bottle or put it back. When she finally took a full drink, she would close her eyes as the alcohol tingled her taste buds, and tilt her head back, and swallow.

It would, after all this, be the first drink in years that she had truly deserved.

Ryan stood on the front steps, hesitating. Two weeks had passed, and for the first time since they’d met, he was on the verge of entering Michelle’s house.

He’d seen it before, having walked her home a dozen times, a two-story house perched on the hill just off the ridge, where it provided an unobstructed view of the small lake below. Beyond that, Ryan could see Vandeveld, where his father had his store, and in the distance the tall buildings of the university district, slightly obscured by a smoggy haze.

But he’d never been inside, never met her parents, never seen where she slept and ate and watched TV. It was, he felt, a major step, especially now, since he knew that her parents were not at home. If he went inside — and he still wasn’t certain he would, even though he knew not doing so would leave him looking foolish — they would be alone together. They would have the entire house to themselves; they would be hidden away from the world, free to do as they pleased.

Finally Michelle turned away from him and slipped inside, leaving the front door open, and he felt his free will melt away. Now he would have to go in, at least for a moment, to explain why he couldn’t stay.

He stepped cautiously into the foyer. To his immediate left, jackets were hung from a rack on the wall; below them was a low bench, beneath which several pairs of shoes, in various sizes and styles, had been tucked away. A staircase in front of him led to a landing halfway to the upper floor, where it made a ninety-degree turn. On his right, a long living room began where the foyer ended, stretching back to a large dining room. Everything was tidy and in its place; there was no clutter, no blemishes to indicate the wear and tear you would expect in a house inhabited by a family of three.

“Boo!” Michelle yelled, jumping out from behind the front door and flinging it shut.

Ryan jumped, his eyelids fluttering; and then he laughed, waiting for Michelle to join him. But she didn’t laugh; instead she just watched with that muted look of amusement that had become so familiar to him. She knew that she had instigated a moment of fun, yet she seemed unable to fully participate in it.

“You want something to drink?” she asked, and he nodded.

The kitchen was at the back of the house, off the dining room. Ryan stood in the center of it as Michelle leaned into the refrigerator examining its contents. As usual he was working hard to respect her beauty, refusing to take advantage of the view her prone position provided him. Instead his eyes drifted around the kitchen, the clean surface of its counter, the unmarred wood of its cupboards, the sparkling interior of its stainless steel sink.

There had so far been no moments of physical intimacy between them. They had not kissed. In fact, they had barely even touched, and then only by accident, a hand momentarily on her shoulder when she headed in the wrong direction, the brief brush of his forearm against hers when, walking side by side, they moved too closely to one another. It was as if they were operating under a tacit agreement to maintain a certain distance from one another.

Ryan didn’t know what other boys in his position would’ve done by now, and if any of it seemed strange to Michelle she wasn’t letting on. But the gap between them, and how to bridge it, was something that occupied Ryan’s mind more and more.

When Michelle again stood upright and turned to face him, she was holding two bottle of orange Fanta, the liquid inside almost fluorescent. She handed one to him; he took it.

“I hope you like it,” she said. “It’s all we’ve got.”

“I hope I like it too,” Ryan said.

Ryan had no idea what he’d meant, but Michelle smiled as if she understood — or as if she didn’t care — and closed the refrigerator. Then she turned and walked away from him toward the living room. Before she disappeared around the corner, he allowed himself to admire her from behind. She was wearing a pink T-shirt and faded blue jeans, and between them at the waist a horizontal strip of flesh was exposed. A wave of yearning forced him to look away.

In the living room he found her sitting on a large leather sofa, her legs crossed underneath her, her bottle of Fanta on the coffee table. He sat next to her, leaving a good two feet between them, and set his bottle down beside hers.

“So,” she said, smiling confidently, or happily, or uncaringly. With Michelle it was never clear. “It’s not so bad, is it?”

“The Fanta?” Ryan said. “I haven’t had any yet.”

Together they glanced at his unopened bottle.

“I’m talking about my house,” she said. “You didn’t want to come in. What were you worried about?”

“The usual,” Ryan said. “Your parents aren’t home, and I have a reputation to protect.”

It was either an innocent joke or a gentle way to broach the subject that had been on his mind. Ryan would let Michelle choose which way to take it. After all, it was her house, and it was she who had brought him there.

Nodding, she picked up her Fanta and opened it. She waited a moment for it to stop fizzing and took a drink.

“So you’re known as a boy who doesn’t enter a girl’s house unless her parents are home,” she said.

“Known as?” Ryan repeated. “Well, I’m not sure it’s the first thing people think of when they think of me.”

“No, it’s not,” Michelle said. “I know it’s not.”

Ryan understood. Two weeks had passed, and he was no longer the lone shaper of her opinion of him. She’d heard things, talked to other students about him. He wondered who she’d talked to and what they’d said. He also wondered if he really wanted to know.

For something to do, he picked up his bottle of Fanta and opened it. It fizzed loudly, its contents bubbling up to the top, threatening to overflow. He put his lips to the top and sucked in a mouthful of foam. Then he took a drink.

“You like it?”

“It’s great,” Ryan said, in a neutral tone foreshadowing sarcasm. “It’s orange, but not orange. The orange we call orange even though it’s not orange.”

“Like watermelon candy.”

“Like watermelon candy,” Ryan confirmed. Then, “What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t really taste like watermelon,” Michelle explained. “But we call it watermelon anyway. It’s watermelon, but not watermelon.”

Ryan put his Fanta down.

“Kiss me,” Michelle said.

“What?”

“Kiss me,” she repeated. “I want a kiss that’s orange but not orange.”

So this was it. She had brought him here to feed him Fanta and ask him to kiss her. Although he had considered such a possibility, he had done nothing to prepare himself for it, had not for one second contemplated what exactly he would do if the moment arrived. He took her in, her slate blue eyes, her rose-colored skin, her golden blond hair pulled back away from her face. He could do it now. He had been asked to. He could kiss one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen.

He leaned forward; their lips met.

The front door opened; her father walked in.

Quickly pulling away from Michelle, blood rushing to his face, guilt-laced fear in his eyes, Ryan turned toward the foyer to take in the man he’d heard so much about but had not yet met.

From what Michelle had told him, he had been expecting a tall man, and one with more bulk. A physically intimidating presence. But the man who stood there was on the short side, and his simple black suit was hanging from a frame that was lean and wiry. His short-cropped hair was as black as his suit and receded far back from his temples, coming forward into a sharp point at the top of his forehead. His eyes were small and dark, black points that scrutinized Ryan and Michelle as he pulled off his suit jacket.

Ryan’s stomach tightened: slung over the man’s left shoulder was a gun belt; in its holster a pistol hung heavily. Ryan stared at the weapon, having never seen one in real life before. He had no way of knowing it, but the next time he saw this gun, it would be pointed at someone’s head.

“Michelle,” her father said as he pulled off his gun belt and hung it and his jacket on the rack beside the front door.

“Hi, Dad,” Michelle said, and Ryan saw that she was also blushing. The two of them looked guilty as hell.

Michelle’s father moved across the living room, a hand already extended. Ryan stood and extended his own hand; they shook.

“Tom Bishop.”

“Ryan Sheffield.”

“Nice to meet you,” Tom Bishop said. “Michelle’s told us a lot about you.”

Ryan nodded and sat.

“How’s your mother?” Tom asked Michelle.

“I don’t know,” she answered.

“You haven’t checked on her?”

She shook her head.

“She called the office,” Tom said. “That’s why I’m home early. Why don’t you go upstairs and see how she’s doing.”

As Michelle stood and moved toward the staircase, Ryan took a moment to process this information. Michelle’s mother was upstairs? They hadn’t been alone after all?

Tom walked back to the kitchen, and Ryan heard the refrigerator door open and the clinking of glass. When he returned, Tom was holding a bottle of beer. He lowered himself into an easy chair at one end of the coffee table.

“So,” he said. “Ryan.”

“Yes,” was all Ryan could think to say.

“I don’t suppose you and Michelle spend a lot of time here after school. While I’m at work.”

“No, not at all,” Ryan said, a bit too emphatically. “I usually walk Michelle home, but this is the first time I’ve been inside.”

“I see.” Tom took a long drink from his beer. “Probably not the last time, though. Am I right?”

“That’s up to you,” Ryan said with a shrug. Then he quickly added, “Of course it’s up to you.”

Tom nodded, appearing to contemplate Ryan’s words. His eyes were on something to Ryan’s left.

“You’ll want coasters for those,” Tom said.

Suddenly Ryan realized what Tom had been looking at: the two bottles of Fanta on the coffee table. At the base of each was a ring of condensation.

Looking around, he spotted a stack of coasters in a holder on a small table at the end of the sofa. He grabbed two and placed them on the coffee table, then he set the Fantas on top of them. After taking a moment to wipe away the rings of wetness on the tabletop, he remembered Tom’s beer. Quickly he grabbed a third coaster and set it down in front of Michelle’s father.

“Thanks,” Tom said. “Michelle knows better, but she forgets.” He looked at Ryan meaningfully. “You’ve noticed, I’m sure.”

“Noticed?” Ryan repeated. “That she forgets?”

Tom set his beer down and leaned back. He took a deep breath, then exhaled heavily.

“It’s not so much that she forgets,” he said. “She just can’t keep it in her head, because she doesn’t empathize. She can’t put herself in my shoes and feel how it makes me feel.”

Of course Ryan knew what Tom was talking about. The laugh that didn’t quite commit, the polite smile that emerged when others around her were outright amused, the humor so dry it was hard to tell she’d meant to be funny. He’d ascribed various meanings to these traits, even declared them signs of her confidence and unselfconsciousness. But was it really just a failure to connect?

“She’s not always right there with you,” Tom went on. “the way you might think she is. She’s learned to cover it up, and of course it helps that she’s pretty and smart. People cut her a lot of slack. I’m telling you this so you’ll know, because she seems to like you a lot, and I want you to know how to take care of her.”

“I understand,” Ryan said, although he was still processing what he’d just learned, retracing his relationship with Michelle, redefining their interactions.

“And I’ll tell you something else,” Tom said, leaning forward almost ominously, his head lowered, his eyes tilted up at Ryan. “That child isn’t just my daughter. The way I love her, it’s more than that. She’s one of my best friends.”

Ryan swallowed hard. Tom’s profession of love had the tone of a threat.

“We have a very special relationship,” Tom said. “A very special relationship. So if you have any questions, or if something happens you don’t understand, you should come to me.”

Tom reached out and slapped Ryan’s thigh; the boy flinched.

“Are you hitting my friend?” Michelle asked as she stepped back into the living room, a smile on her face, one eyebrow cocked.

“How’s your mother?” Tom asked as he picked up his beer and stood.

“She’s fine,” Michelle said, adding, “You know.”

She walked around her father’s chair and past Ryan’s knees, retaking her seat on the sofa.

“She doesn’t remember calling you,” she said.

Hearing this, Tom nodded wearily.

“I’ll go up and see how she’s doing,” he said. “It was nice talking to you, Ryan. Let’s have you over for dinner sometime.”

“Sure,” Ryan said, trying to hide his relief that Michelle had returned and that her father was leaving. He watched as Tom turned away and disappeared through the foyer, listened to his footsteps as he ascended the stairs.

“So,” Michelle said, “that’s my dad.”

“He has a gun,” Ryan said, hoping to prompt an explanation.

“Yeah,” was all Michelle said in response.

“And your mom?” Ryan asked, watching Michelle as she put her bottle of Fanta to her lips and took a drink.

“She’s having a bad day,” Michelle said simply, setting her bottle down several inches from the coaster it had been on.

Ryan reached for his own bottle, but Michelle stopped him with a hand on his wrist.

“No,” she said. “We have some time.”

He looked up at her, drew his eyebrows together, confused.

“Kiss me,” she said. “Kiss me now.”

Walker heard his wife’s voice: “Run!”

Then again: “Run!!”

He wanted to turn and see what was happening behind him, but fear kept him focused on the heavy-set man. Each time the man took a step forward, Walker took a step back. The man’s hands hung in the air just inches from Walker’s face, fingers grasping. Walker tried to see a way around the man, but there was none: the trail was too narrow. To escape they would have to either go into the forest or go back. Or, Walker realized, they could fight.

Yes, Walker decided, adrenaline pumping through his veins, the pace of his breathing increasing. Now was the time to fight.

“Walker!” Jane screamed, now right behind him.

There was desperation in her voice; she seemed to be pleading with him. But he could not deal with her now. Reaching out with both hands, he grabbed one of the heavy-set man’s arms and swung him around toward the rock around which the trail had curved. The man moved easily, more easily than Walker had expected given his size, and he slammed hard into the rock with the entire front of his body. Now Walker could see the wound on the man’s back.

“Oh my god,” Jane gasped, also focused on the gap where a huge chunk of the man’s back had once been.

Unfazed, Walker used one hand to press the man against the rock, and with the other he grabbed a handful of the man’s hair and began to slam his face against the hard stone. The sound was sickening, and when a bone in the man’s face snapped, Walker thought he heard Jane gag.

Now, believing that the man must be stunned, Walker pulled him away from the rock. But the man seemed to have lost none of his energy, or his hunger. His hands leapt into the air, and he struggled to turn and resume his attack on Walker. Panicking, Walker rushed the man forward to the edge of the trail, where the slope down through the forest began, and he pushed him over the edge.

Breathing heavily, his skin glistening, Walker watched as the man tumbled away through the underbrush, narrowly avoiding several trees as he went. Their attacker vanquished, he allowed himself to feel satisfied, even heroic. But that didn’t last.

“Oh no,” Jane moaned, stepping up next to him. “Oh no, Walker. Ryan–!”

“What about Ryan?” Walker cut in, with more than a hint of annoyance. Only then did he realize that he couldn’t see his son anywhere. “Where’s Ryan?”

Unable to speak, her skin gone ashen, Jane pointed down the slope.

“I told him to run!” she cried.

***

They moved down through the forest several yards apart, slowly but with a sense of urgency, their eyes flitting through the shrubbery and behind trees, searching for any sign of Ryan. At the same time, they remained alert in case another creature should appear.

Walker felt angry and betrayed. What kind of sick joke was this? He had done everything in his power to keep his family safe and together, to separate them from the forces back home that threatened to tear them apart, only to run into this. Fate was going to enormous lengths to undermine his efforts. Apparently it wasn’t enough that they be fugitives, doomed to live their lives on the run. Only their complete annihilation would suffice.

From further down the hill, the unmistakable sound of gunfire. Jane froze, her eyes wide, while Walker broke into a panicked run, the underbrush ripping at his exposed calves, low-hanging branches beating his face and tugging at his clothes. When he saw the narrow dirt road and the figures standing on it, his pace increased: Ryan was under attack. But then he saw the camouflage clothing and the rifles, and he stopped dead in his tracks.

Soldiers.

A moment later, Jane joined him. When she started to speak, he quickly placed a hand over her mouth.

There were three soldiers: a recon team, Walker guessed. One of them was leading Ryan to the side of the road while the other two continued onward up the valley. Then there was the sound of approaching vehicles, what sounded like dozens of them, heavy machines that caused the air itself to vibrate.

Jane pulled Walker’s hand away.

“He’s alright,” she said, her voice weak, relieved.

“Not if the army takes him,” Walker said.

“But shouldn’t we go with them?” Jane asked. “Wouldn’t we be safer with them?”

An army jeep shot past, then another, then a convoy of troop transports. Ryan stood looking up at the vehicles, dwarfed by them, as a cloud of dust engulfed him. The third soldier left Ryan’s side and ran after the other two.

“In that case,” Walker said, “we might as well have just handed ourselves over to the police two weeks ago.”

“But things have changed,” Jane pleaded. “What’s happening now, these people–”

“Eventually this will end,” Walker stated, with a confidence he did not feel. “In the meantime, we will take care of ourselves.”

Walker moved away from his wife and down to the edge of the road. Now just a few feet from his son, barely concealed by the leaves of a low, thin shrub, he watched and waited until one last troop transport passed and the road went quiet. Hearing other vehicles approaching, knowing this was only a gap, Walker moved quickly to his son’s side.

Ryan looked up at him, startled.

“Let’s go,” Walker said sternly, clutching Ryan’s arm.

“There’s a rescue team coming…”

“Let’s go!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Walker saw the front grill of another jeep as it rounded the corner. Quickly he pulled Ryan away from the road and into the woods. They fell to the ground in the shadows.

“Don’t move,” Walker warned. “They’ll see us.”

The jeep passed, and then another. Just when it seemed that the previous pattern was going to repeat itself, a pair of army ambulances roared into view. These were followed by another convoy of troop transports, but instead of soldiers inside, these were filled with men, women and children dressed in civilian attire. They looked forlorn and weary, most sitting with their eyes pointed downward at the bed of the truck. The few who were looking outside seemed to be staring at nothing in particular, their eyes glazed by fatigue and the trials they had endured.

An evacuation, Walker realized as truck after truck rolled by, the number increasing until he was sure that civilians outnumbers troops by at least three to one.

The convoy ended as it had begun, with a pair of army jeeps, their soft tops up, the soldiers inside them only hazily visible. Once the sound of vehicles had vanished entirely, Walker led Ryan up the hill to where Jane was sitting on the forest floor.

Jane grabbed Ryan and pulled him down to her, embracing him urgently. It seemed desperate and regretful, and more for her sake than for Ryan’s, but still, it was a real hug. Back in Seattle, Jane’s displays of affection for her son had been rare and hasty.

“From now on, we’ll stay off the trails and the roads,” Walker said. “It’ll be rougher going, but these creatures seem to be wandering the trails, and the army’s all over the roads.”

Ryan gently pushed away from him mother and rose to his feet. “They’re in the woods too,” he told his father. “That woman on the road, she came out of the woods.”

“Nothing’s certain, of course,” Walker said.

“Are we still headed to Bern?” Jane asked.

“Yes, we’re going to Bern,” Walker said. An evacuation, an empty city. Only these stupid creatures to deal with. “Get on your feet and let’s go.”

***

Moving slowly through the forest, avoiding the trails and roads, it took them the rest of that day and part of the next to reach Bern.

On the way they didn’t encounter any more creatures — and ‘creatures’ is now what they had settled on calling the beasts that had upended their Swiss seclusion. There had been no discussion, no agreement. Walker had been the first to say it out loud, and Ryan and Jane had taken the word on as their own. It was a way to set aside the confusion the creatures inspired, by appearing human when in fact they could not have been, at least not anymore.

“The man from the trail,” Ryan told his father during the night, when they stopped for a few hours to rest. “They shot him three times before he finally went down.”

“They’re tough, these creatures,” Walker said, his eyes searching the shadows for any sign of movement.

“It was more than that,” Ryan said. “I saw he’d been hit. In the face, then in the neck. But it was like he didn’t even notice.”

“Maybe he didn’t,” Walker said.

He glanced over at Jane, curled up in a ball at the base of a tree. Unlike her husband and son, she had managed to find enough peace to sleep. How, Walker could not imagine. Had she forgotten that this was all her fault?

“You were brave back there on the road,” Walker told his son. “I was worried about you after what happened at the house, the way you screamed and just stood there.”

Ryan knew what his father meant, but to him the difference had been in the situations. On the road he’d had time to think. If he once again found himself torn from his slumber by a creature crashing through his bedroom window, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t just stand there and scream as he had before.

“I need some help here,” Walker went on. “Your mom’s not going to be any help, and I can’t take care of all three of us by myself.”

Walker reached out and placed his hand firmly on Ryan’s shoulder.

“Can I count on you to do what needs to be done?” he said.

“Sure, Dad,” Ryan said. “Sure.”

***

The next morning, as they continued their slow descent, Walker gave some more thought to the situation they were walking into. If the army wanted the hills, let them have them. Even if Bern was crowded with creatures, all Walker and his family needed was a single room, preferably higher than street level, with a sturdy front door and a back way out. If they were quiet and careful, the creatures wouldn’t even know they were there.

And there would be supplies. At the moment, the only supplies they had were the clothes they were wearing and the few items in the packs on their backs, which included very little food. The army had of course taken a great deal with them, and certainly there had been looting, but surely something remained. Not much perhaps, but enough for the three of them.

The only real unknown was the cause of all this. Had the army evacuated Bern because of the creatures, or because of what had made them creatures in the first place? Was Walker leading his family into ground zero of a viral epidemic, or a biological attack?

He couldn’t know, of course, and in the end he refused to let a complete unknown drive his decision. He knew the army was in the hills, and he knew they couldn’t survive in the forest without supplies. So the city it had to be.

***

That afternoon, they entered Bern from the west.

The road they had been traveling alongside — cautiously, keeping to the shadows — abruptly widened, and above it arced what looked like freeway ramps. The sight of so much road made the lack of traffic sounds conspicuous, a haunting absence.

Moving forward now would leave them fully exposed, a trio of figures moving through the glare of the bright afternoon sun. Walker kept his family back in the shadow of a large tree as he surveyed the scene.

A sign on a nearby lamppost read Papiermühlestrasse, white reflective letters on a green background. Behind it a low wall partially concealed a sprawling cemetery. Stepping away from his parents, Ryan peered over the wall at the headstones, row after row of granite, several different shades of grey. None of the graves had been disturbed. Whoever had been buried here was still buried here.

“It’s an overpass,” Walker was saying. “A terrible place to get trapped, but we’ll have to cross.” He turned to his son. “Ryan, you keep watch behind us. You see anything, don’t take your time letting me know.”

They crossed the overpass in a line, Walker in front, Jane in the middle, Ryan at the rear, walking backwards with his eyes on the road where they’d just been. As they moved over the freeway, he peered down at the four lanes of empty blacktop, instinctively expecting a car or truck to whoosh into view at any moment, then reminding himself uneasily that the world was empty now. All the cars and trucks had been set aside, their engines stilled.

“Behind us, Ryan,” Walker ordered.

Quickly Ryan refocused on the tree-canopied road they’d just moved down and the cemetery he’d briefly gazed into. He only averted his eyes again when the overpass crossed a pair of railroad tracks. In the middle distance was a station, its platform empty, and the rumble of a passing train was added to Ryan’s inventory of missing sounds.

On the other side of the overpass was a large intersection, beyond which the road again became tree-lined. Walker ushered his family quickly to where the trees began, forgetting caution for the sake of attaining partial concealment. Across the road was a large grassy field, which on any other sunny afternoon would have been filled with people at play. On this side of the road, where the trees began, loomed a stadium. Stade de Suisse, Ryan read, his ears full of the absent roar of several thousand spectators.

They kept to the trees as they continued, hiding themselves as well as they could among the trunks while still moving forward. But as far as Ryan could tell, their caution was unnecessary. There was no one; the city was empty. The capital of Switzerland. Population: three Americans.

The road sloped downward and curved to the left, and the sidewalk opened up into a wide path. Down below they could see the heart of the city, a sea of steep burgundy roofs, broken up by the occasional church steeple or clock tower. Benches along the path facing the cityscape stood empty.

A wide river curved around the city’s near edge, it’s flow uninterrupted by whatever supernatural catastrophe had taken place. At the bottom of the road they were traveling along, Ryan saw an ancient bridge, a bridge they would have to cross if they intended to enter the city. It was shorter than the overpass, but also narrower. And although it had the river below it, it was too far down to jump into if they became trapped.

Sure enough, when they arrived at the bridge Walker stopped and took a moment to scrutinize it. Nearby was a large circular pit surrounded by a waist-high wall. On the opposite side was a structure with windows that had been designed to mimic a castle in miniature, with two narrow towers on either end of a crenelated parapet.

Apparently in the process of being renovated, aluminum scaffolding peeked up out of the pit, and a construction crane loomed overhead. On a nearby fence, a sign announced, in slightly awkward English, “Here the new BärenPark Bern is being built, park for bears and humans.” Ryan moved cautiously away from his parents to the edge of the pit.

It was about ten feet deep, and in the center was a stack of rectangular stones, placed irregularly, with tall grass shooting up out of the cracks between them. Between the stones and the interior wall was a dirt path, about four yards wide, that ran around the pit’s circumference. Ryan looked for bears, but there were none; apparently because of the construction they’d been moved elsewhere.

A long moment passed before Ryan realized that he was being watched, that a face was peering at him from around the opposite edge of the stones. He held his breath, and the face ducked away, only to reappear a moment later, slipping slowly — cautiously, Ryan thought — into view. Ryan clutched the top of the wall and tried to determine exactly what it was he was looking at. Was it a human? Or was it one of them?

“Dad,” Ryan said without turning. “Dad, come here.”

A moment later Walker was at his side, Jane standing just a few feet behind him, her arms crossed. She looked jumpy, unable to focus. Ryan supposed she needed a drink.

“What is it?” Walker asked, but then he saw for himself why Ryan had called him over. “Is it one of them?”

“I don’t think so,” Ryan said. “He seems afraid.”

“Hello!” Walker called out.

He raised a hand and waved, which apparently was all the reassurance that was required. When the creature pulled itself out from behind the stones, leaning against them to compensate for the leg it was missing, every trace of apprehension had vanished. It had been replaced by the look of all-consuming hunger that Walker and his family knew so well.

Ryan made a move to back quickly away, but Walker stopped him with a hand on his back.

“Don’t panic,” Walker said. “He couldn’t get to us from down there even if had both his legs.”

“Horrible,” Jane said, now standing at the pit’s edge next to Ryan. Her lips were dry, cracked.

The creature’s lone leg twisted awkwardly, its hands lost their grip on the stone, and it fell bluntly to the ground, raising a cloud of dirt. Quickly it pushed itself up and over into a sitting position, then it raised its hands toward them, its fingers grasping. It gnashed its cracked and blood-stained teeth, as if anticipating the taste of their flesh.

“Horrible,” Jane said again.

“Let’s go,” Walker said.

And then it happened. The creature in the pit opened its mouth wide, a dark morbid hole, and let out a howl that seemed to rip the air itself apart. Ryan had heard these creatures make a number of sounds, growls and grunts. But none like this one. None that seemed so possessed of purpose.

A warm breeze cut across the three of them, tousling their hair and tugging lightly at their clothes, and carrying with it an acrid stench. Together they turned toward the road they had just walked down, their eyes on the steep, grass-covered hill that loomed above it. The grass was tall and wild, and rich with green, and it swung and snapped in the wind.

Then a dark shape emerged from the grass, rising unsteadily to its feet. Then another, and still another, all seemingly answering the call of the creature in the pit. They had been hiding, Ryan realized. They had concealed themselves in the grass, and only now that they knew it was safe were they revealing themselves. What threat had driven them into the grass, Ryan didn’t know. He only knew that he and his family were clearly not it.

There were now perhaps twenty of them moving down the hill to the road and toward them. Then more appeared, lumbering up a road that led down to the river, their arms outstretched. Then movement to his right caught Ryan’s attention, and he turned his head to see another group of creatures hobble out from where they had been hidden by the mini-castle across the pit.

Ryan and his parents stood frozen in disbelief. How many were there now? Forty, fifty? And how many more were as yet holding back, skulking in the shadows, still unsure that they were safe from harm? And what was it that had taught these creatures fear?

Walker put a hand on Ryan’s shoulder and grabbed Jane by the arm, leading them quickly away from the pit back to the street. Looking across the bridge they saw no shapes, no movement at all, just a narrow stone road curving up into the city. Perhaps on the other side, among Bern’s narrow streets and closely-packed buildings, they would be safe. Or perhaps not. But given what was developing on this side of the bridge, the heart of the city was quickly turning into their only option.

As they ran across the bridge, Ryan chanced a glance down at the river. Turquoise, he would say its color had been, when at last there was someone to tell. And it looked like flowing granite, he would add, its surface smooth save for the occasional shudder, the odd tremble.

If he ever saw Michelle again, that’s what he’d tell her. He’d tell her about the one beautiful thing he’d seen in the midst of all this horror. And he’d tell her that it had reminded him of her.

First and foremost were the books. Nearly every inch of cream-colored wall space was covered with sturdy oak shelves, stretching from the floor to just a yard shy of the ceiling. Additional shelves were spaced out on the carpeted floor, standing back to back, not as high as the shelves on the wall, but high enough to ensure that the aisles they created were as intimate and isolated as they could be. Then there were the tables, two of them, heavy and wide, nearly filling the space just inside the entrance, weighted down with stacks of the latest trade paperbacks.

Books, nearly everywhere they looked, meant that people entering Sheffield Books might not feel discouraged. It seemed possible, even likely, that even though it wasn’t a Barnes & Noble, the book they were looking for was there. Increasing the odds was the fact that after ten years in business, Walker knew the Vandeveld neighborhood well, knew what its residents liked and what they didn’t. He’d developed a skill for knowing which books to stock and which to pass on, to anticipate his customers’ wants.

For comfort, he’d installed two plush overstuffed easy chairs at the rear of the store, tucked under opposite ends of the large window that took up the back wall. He’d bought the chairs used, not caring that they were worn and needed patching. In fact, he preferred them that way. New and sturdy chairs belonged in a different store catering to different customers. Quickly it had proven to be another wise choice. Even on especially slow days, the chairs were rarely unoccupied.

Finally, there was the light, the thing that had first grabbed Walker’s attention when he’d been shopping around for a place to open a store. The space had been empty then, the walls battered white, the floor bare concrete and littered with debris. But the wall opposite the entrance — a tall expanse of sectioned glass, nine windows in columns of three each — was the first thing he noticed. It filled the space with light, the earthy glow coming from without enhanced by the wood frames and latticing. Outside all one could see was sky. It was the ideal space in which to discover a book.

It was Saturday, and Kyle stood at the back of the store, pulling down overstock. As well as Walker managed to carry only the books that would appeal to the residents of Vandeveld, there were always books left unsold, and they needed to be returned. Kyle had worked at Sheffield Books long enough to achieve the status of assistant manager, and it was he who had the responsibility of deciding which books to send back. Yet there were no small jobs at Sheffield Books, and so it was Kyle too who had been given the task of pulling the books off the shelves. Menial work, it involved little more than stacking the books in the dust atop the shelves, and it felt like an affront to his otherwise high level of responsibility.

Kyle was a student at the University of Washington, majoring in English literature, and he’d started working there two years before, when, in his freshman year, he’d begun running out of money. It had been a financial decision, but it had seemed like a good fit with his studies, and so he’d leapt at the opportunity as if it had been an academic choice. It hadn’t taken long before it had started to seem less like a learning experience and more like just a job, but he’d stuck with it. He loved books, which one could perhaps deduce from his thickening physique, and maybe one day he’d use his knowledge to open a bookstore of his own. If so, a few years at Sheffield Books would do him some good.

The Saturday morning crowd was thin. A few strays were drifting down Vandeveld Avenue, but none seemed interested in books. When suddenly a young girl appeared at the front counter, Kyle was surprised. He hadn’t heard the door open; he didn’t know how long she’d been waiting. Seeing Kyle at the back of the store, she smiled, as if to thank him for finally acknowledging her presence. Kyle set down the books he was holding and moved around behind the counter.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

“I’m looking for a present for my father,” the girl said. “It’s a bestseller, but I didn’t see it on your front tables. Maybe you’re out of it?”

She was a pretty child, with bright blue eyes and thick blond hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. Kyle guessed that she was about twelve, way too young for him, but still he felt awkward standing in front of her. His short, dark hair was unwashed and uncombed, he hadn’t shaved since Wednesday, and his heavy belly pushed out the front of his wrinkled grey T-shirt. He considered himself an intellectual and thus above things like fashion and fitness, yet at times like these it was hard not to wish he were someone else.

“Okay,” Kyle said. “What’s the book called?”

“I can’t remember the name,” the girl said. “But it’s by Bill O’Reilly. His new book.”

“Bill O’Reilly,” Kyle sighed, and his awkwardness slipped away. This girl wasn’t just in the wrong bookstore; she was in the wrong city. “Yeah, you’re not going to find any Bill O’Reilly books here.”

“I’m not? But his book’s a bestseller. You don’t have bestsellers here?”

The girl seemed genuinely perplexed. Evidently her looks were all she had going for her. Only twelve years old and already a hopeless case.

“We have bestsellers here,” Kyle informed her, shaking his head. “Our bestsellers. The books that our customers want to buy. Which don’t include books by Bill O’Reilly, or Rush Limbaugh, or Ann Coulter, or Sean Hannity, or any other fascist hate-mongerers. You want Bill O’Reilly, go to Borders. They stock everything, they don’t care.”

The girl’s eyes had gone wide, but she didn’t seem seriously upset. She was laughing at him, Kyle realized, and like that his awkwardness was revived. Why had he not shaved or showered? Why had he worn the T-shirt he’d slept in to work? Why did beauty always trump intelligence?

“Can I help you with anything else?” he asked.

“Yes,” the girl said, and then she spoke slowly, as if choosing her words carefully. “Could you call Borders for me and see if they have the book? I’d hate to go all the way down there just to find out they don’t have it either.”

“Listen–” Kyle hissed, seething.

But whatever he’d planned on telling the girl would never be known. At that moment, a door behind him opened, and Walker emerged, wearing a pointedly warm smile.

“Kyle?” he said, in a friendly tone. “Is there something I can help out with?”

“Sure, Walker,” Kyle said. He stepped to one side, and Walker took his place at the counter. “This young lady is looking for Bill O’Reilly’s new book.”

“Ah, yes,” Walker said. “A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity, I think it’s called. Great title, don’t you think?” he asked the girl.

“Sure,” the girl agreed. “But he said you don’t carry books by fascists.”

“Well, of course we carry books by fascists,” Walker said, looking confused. “We’ve got Mein Kampf, for example. And wasn’t that even your idea?” he asked Kyle.

Walker was the worst, Kyle thought, not for the first time. Smart and good-looking. And he’d even managed to marry a smart and good-looking woman and have a smart and good-looking son. Kyle desperately wanted to walk away, to return to pulling down overstock. But he’d been asked a question.

“Mein Kampf is an important historical document,” he explained. “It has educational value.”

“And don’t we also have My Rise and Fall?” Walker went on. “And that book by Codreanu–?”

“Again, all historically important,” Kyle insisted.

“Hey, I have an idea,” Walker said, his attention now focused on the girl. “Why don’t you ask Ryan to come inside?”

The girl smiled sweetly, and she flushed.

“Ryan?” Kyle asked, agitation replaced by confusion.

“Yes, Ryan,” Walker confirmed. Then he asked the girl, “You’re Michelle, right?”

The girl nodded.

“Nice to meet you. My name’s Walker.”

***

Inside the small office behind the counter, which felt crowded despite containing only a desk and a wooden chair, Walker opened a narrow door and waved them forward.

Ryan moved aside to let Michelle through.

“My father’s hideaway,” he said.

“My den,” Walker corrected good-naturedly.

She stepped past Ryan and Walker and found herself at the top of a wooden staircase. She stood there for a moment, looking down, her face lit from beneath.

She was beautiful in a way that hurt Ryan, knowing that a day would come when she would no longer be his. One day she would exist only in memories. As a young boy, he’d read enough to be familiar with the path of romance, how it inevitably led to loss.

“Cool,” Michelle said as she descended.

Walker waited for Ryan to follow her, and as his son approached him he flashed an approving smile. This pleased Ryan; his father’s approval always did. Most of the time he expected Walker’s approval, yet couldn’t always be sure of it.

At the bottom of the stairs, Ryan and Walker found Michelle standing in the center of the basement, pivoting slowly, examining her surroundings.

As in the bookstore, most of the walls here were covered with shelves, but these shelves were laden with old books, their spines cracked and stained. The concrete floor was covered with a worn and faded oriental rug, its fringes in tangles. Opposite the foot of the stairs, under the room’s lone window, was an antique easy chair. Next to the chair was an end table, on which sat a book and a coffee mug. The window was covered with a burgundy curtain.

“Have you read all these books?” Michelle asked.

“These and a lot more,” Walker said, picking his mug up off the end table and taking a sip. “But these are my favorites. Why don’t you grab a couple of chairs, Ryan?”

Ryan reached under the staircase and grabbed two of the rickety wooden chairs that Walker kept tucked away there. He placed them in the center of the room, facing Walker’s easy chair. He placed the chairs some distance apart, so he could look at Michelle — and see all of her — without being too conspicuous.

“So how did we give ourselves away?” Ryan asked as he and Michelle sat.

“At first I was just giving Kyle a hard time,” Walker said. “I rely on him a lot, but raising his voice with customers is not okay. I could hear him all the way down here.

“Plus for Kyle,” Walker continued, “everyone’s a fascist. He’s a smart guy, but a bit too passionate. He doesn’t realize that the word ‘fascist’ actually means something. It’s not just a word you throw at people you don’t like.”

Walker was ostensibly responding to Ryan’s question, but his focus was on Michelle. He was measuring his words against the look on her face, trying to read her reactions. But as far as Ryan could tell, she wasn’t reacting at all, just watching and listening. It was an almost preternatural attentiveness that Ryan had noticed before.

“Then suddenly,” Walker went on, shifting his focus to Ryan, “a few different things popped into my head all at once. One was the story I’d told you, about the guy who came in looking for a Rush Limbaugh book and how Kyle had flipped out. And then I realized that this girl at the counter was about your age, and that reminded me that you’d mentioned a new girl at school.”

Blood rushed to Ryan’s cheeks; he hoped it wasn’t too visible in the burgundy-hued basement. Sure, he and Michelle were spending a lot of their free time together, but he didn’t need her knowing that he’d talked with his parents about her.

Luckily Michelle was still focused on Walker.

“So why don’t you carry Bill O’Reilly?” she asked.

“It’s not for the reasons you’d think,” Walker insisted, his elbows on the armrests, his fingers interlaced. “Have you ever read Bill O’Reilly?”

“Yeah,” Michelle said. “My dad really is a fan. He has all his books.”

“Well tell your father,” Walker said, “that I don’t carry Maureen Dowd, Chris Matthews, Jon Stewart or Michael Moore either. All those guys, they’re just writing to appeal to their base. I’ve got 1,100 square feet and maybe 6,000 titles to work with. I don’t have room for books like that.”

As if reminded of something, Michelle’s focus switched suddenly from Walker to the basement.

“It’s too small,” she said.

“Sure, but I think I make the most of it–”

“No, the basement,” Michelle clarified, “It’s smaller than the store.”

“Good eye,” Walker said with a smile. “At some point before I moved in, my neighbor took over part of it. I didn’t notice it till after I’d signed the lease.”

While Michelle considered this, Walker turned to Ryan, and something in his expression shifted.

“What’s your mom up to?” he asked.

“The usual,” Ryan said. “Is that why you’re here?”

“I’m here,” Walker said, “because Saturday’s the busiest day of the week and Kyle can’t handle things on his own. Isn’t that obvious?”

Walker forced a laugh, and Ryan joined him. Michelle smiled politely.

“Well, I’d better go upstairs and make a show of it,” Walker said. “Thanks for the visit. It was nice meeting you, Michelle.”

“You, too,” she said.

Walker stood and motioned Michelle toward the stairs, and he and Ryan waited as she passed between them.

“What is it your father likes about O’Reilly?” Walker asked, as he and Ryan fell in behind her.

“Dunno,” Michelle said. “Maybe it’s his job.”

“Oh yeah?” Walker asked. “What’s he do?”

Michelle was at the top of the stairs, reaching out to open the office door.

“I could tell you–” she started to say.

“But you’d have to kill me?” Walker finished.

Michelle stopped, looked down at Walker and let a long moment pass. Standing just behind his father, Ryan watched as her lips parted and her tongue glided along the tips of her teeth, as it had on the day they’d met. It was a sign, Ryan now knew, that she was amused.

“Not me,” she said finally, in a matter-of-fact tone. “But he might.”

If he chose to flee, how many more of these creatures would he find? In both directions, the road turned and became obscured by trees. In the direction from which they’d come, he knew there were dozens of these things. Down the valley, meanwhile, was a complete unknown. Perhaps it was safe. Or perhaps civilization had fallen as well.

He decided that for the moment it was better to stay where he was. Here, now, there were two. He could deal with two.

A heavy stick was laying along the side of the road. Ryan picked it up and took several steps toward the man, who was now just a few feet away, his arms outstretched, his fingers grasping. Ryan was almost ready to strike, almost ready to commit — for the first time — an act of violence against another human being. Or what appeared to be another human being.

But first, he would give diplomacy a try.

“Hi,” Ryan said, his own voice sounding odd to him, out of place.

He held the stick in both hands, in a batter’s stance.

“Do you speak English?” Ryan asked.

The heavy-set man stopped. Ryan scanned his dull grey eyes and saw something like a flicker of comprehension. The man looked like the walking dead, yet some part of him seemed to have recognized that he had been addressed, that he’d been asked a question. And so he had stopped, and now he was waiting.

The man’s hands were still out in front of him, his fingers splayed, in mid-grasp. Ryan spotted dirt under his nails, then took in his workman’s clothes: a plaid flannel shirt buttoned across the front of a pair of blue overalls, boots caked with mud. What had he been doing when whatever now afflicted him had struck? Had he been working his fields, milking his cows? Ryan could only guess.

From somewhere, Ryan thought he heard a low, rumbling hum. But the moment he noticed it, it disappeared.

“Do you speak English?” Ryan asked again.

Now, whatever animal instinct had been driving him before again took over, and the heavy-set man lunged at Ryan, his fingers closing into fists as if he already felt he had the boy in his hands.

Ryan stepped aside and around the man, and only then could he see the damage the man’s body had endured. The back of his flannel shirt hung torn open, and a chunk of meat from his back was missing. Like the woman still making her way down out of the forest, there was no way that this man was still alive.

Ryan raised the stick and swung it as hard as he could at the back of the man’s head. There was a thick, deadly crack, and the man flopped down to the road, once again landing on his face. Ryan stood over the man, expecting him to stay still, hoping he wouldn’t have to hit him again, but as quickly as the man had fallen, he rolled over and stood.

He didn’t seem more ferocious, the way a normal man would have after being struck. There was nothing more in his eyes than there had been before, nothing new. Just the same determination, the same hunger.

Now Ryan saw that the woman had arrived at the road. She was behind the heavy-set man, moving toward them awkwardly, her body twisted by her wound. Both creatures had their eyes fixed on Ryan.

A hole appeared in the man’s forehead, just in front of his temple, and at the same time Ryan heard a crack coming from somewhere behind him. He ducked instinctively but didn’t take his eyes off the heavy-set man. The man stopped, but only for a moment. His new wound seemed to have done little more than confuse him. His focus was still on Ryan. He lurched forward again, the woman bringing up the rear.

Then there were three more cracks, in quick succession. The bridge of the woman’s nose disappeared, and she abruptly collapsed, like a marionette whose strings have been cut. The heavy-set man’s throat opened up, a bloodless wound revealing dry, rotting muscle. Then a flap of skin and bone pulled away from his face, spinning through the air, leaving a hole where his nose and part of his cheek had been. And now what little life there had been in the heavy-set man’s eyes vanished, and he dropped to the ground a few feet in front of the woman.

Ryan spun around. Fear and confusion mixed into nausea and set him to trembling. He was looking down toward the bottom of the valley, where they’d been able to see buildings, buildings now obscured by the foothills. The hundred yards of the road that he could see, before it dipped away to the right, were empty. Then the noise he’d heard before resumed, the heavy hum of an engine mixed with the rumble of rubber on dry earth. The sounds were growing louder, still distant, but approaching.

A figure emerged from the low side of the forest, his steps measured, cautious. He was a soldier, dressed in camouflage, a blend of black, brown and two shades of green, a pack on his back. His head was protected by a helmet, his feet wrapped in sturdy black boots, the cuffs of his pants tucked in. He was holding a rifle out in front of him, the butt pressed against his shoulder, the barrel pointed down at the two creatures on the ground.

A second soldier stepped down into the road from the other side, and like the first soldier he seemed to emerge from the foliage itself, once invisible in camouflage, now fully revealed. This soldier moved faster than the first, his rifle aimed further up the road, toward the top of the valley. Searching for a new threat while the first soldier stayed focused on the old.

As the second slipped swiftly past Ryan on his left, the first soldier stepped up beside him.

“Isch alles in Ornig?” the first soldier asked.

He and Ryan were shoulder to shoulder but facing opposite directions. The soldier’s eyes, along with his rifle, remained focused on the immobile creatures splayed out behind Ryan. The name on the patch on the soldier’s chest was MOHLER.

“I’m sorry…” Ryan said after a moment.

Mohler looked up. A flicker in his eyes as something registered.

“Are you okay?” he asked, in faintly-accented English. “Are you injured?”

“I’m okay,” Ryan nodded.

Mohler jabbed the tip of his rifle at the bodies.

“They didn’t bite you? Did they scratch you?”

“No,” Ryan said.

Mohler glanced over his shoulder down the road, and Ryan watched as a third soldier appeared in the center of road, walking toward them. Only then did Ryan notice that the hum and rumble he’d heard before had once again ceased.

“If you have been bitten or scratched,” Mohler was saying, gazing thoughtfully at the approaching soldier, “we have medicine.”

Ryan took in Mohler’s rifle, the source of the cracks he’d heard. He could feel its heat. So it was a disease of some kind, and there was a cure. Yet they were shooting the infected on sight, and from a distance.

“I haven’t been bitten or scratched,” Ryan said firmly. “I haven’t even been touched.”

Mohler’s tight lips turned up into a odd grin. Then he looked again at the third soldier — Stricker, according to his shirt — now just a few yards away. The new arrival’s rifle was raised, not aimed at Ryan, but certainly at the ready.

“Es isch OK, nimm dini ‘Medizin’ aabe,“ Mohler told Stricker. “Är isch nid bisse und au nid kratzt worde.”

Stricker nodded, and the tip of his rifle dropped. He signaled to the second soldier, who was now moving quickly back down the road toward them. More words were exchanged, and then the second soldier spoke into the microphone of the radio he was carrying. He had barely finished speaking when the hum and rumble resumed.

Mohler patted Ryan on the back, still wearing an odd, impenetrable grin, then he peeled away and ran ahead to the second soldier. They took positions on either side of the road and advanced quickly. As Ryan watched them go, Stricker placed a hand on his arm and led him to the high side of the road.

The rumble was peaking, the hum now a steady engine growl. Ryan looked down the road just as the first vehicle, a jeep, appeared. It was followed by another jeep, and then a heavy green troop transport thundered into view and roared past. It was followed by a second, then a third, kicking up dust and rocks.

“We’re not rescue,” Stricker told Ryan, his diction slow and clear. “There’s an aid team at the end. Wait here.”

Stricker placed both hands on his rifle, gripping it tightly, purposefully, and then he jogged up the road after Mohler and his comrade.

Ryan stood on the side of the road, dwarfed as the troop transports thundered past. The men inside looked down at him as they rolled past. Some waved dispiritedly, some forced reassuring smiles, but most just stared down at him wearing grave expressions, as if they pitied Ryan only slightly more than they pitied themselves. Whatever was happening in these hills, whatever bizarre, horrific thing was transpiring, they had been charged with cleaning it up. Their duty as soldiers in a compulsory army.

There was a gap after the last troop transport passed. Ryan looked down the empty road, impatient for the rescue vehicles to appear. He would tell them that he had been separated from his parents, that they needed help too, that he wouldn’t leave without them. Maybe they had been wounded, but there was medicine, and the rescue team would find them and cure them before whatever sickness was in these hills had turned them into monsters.

Ryan heard other vehicles approaching. Then his father was standing beside him, his eyes wide, urgent. At first startled by Walker’s sudden arrival, Ryan quickly relaxed. Yet he still found himself checking his father for wounds.

“Let’s go,” Walker said sternly, clutching Ryan’s arm.

“There’s a rescue team coming…”

“Let’s go!”

Most of the dozens now collected there stopped at the water’s edge, but some moved into the lake in pursuit, their eyes focused on Walker and his family. Only a few of these engaged in anything resembling swimming, looking as if their arms vaguely remembered something that the rest of their body had forgotten. But they too, like all of the ones who’d entered the lake, eventually slipped under the surface and did not reemerge.

“What’s going on?” Ryan asked.

This was not Walker’s son, the boy who knew everything, or who could at least make up a passable answer. This boy was that boy’s shell.

“I don’t know,” Walker said. It was an admission of ignorance, but in a tone that said that whatever was going on, he would deal with it. He wanted his son to believe that the situation, while seemingly out of control, was still in Walker’s grasp.

Walker looked across the lake at the creatures still standing on the shore, the ones who’d refused to enter the water. What were they thinking? What had kept them out of the water? Was it ‘thinking’ it all? Or just pure instinct?

It was a small, tear-shaped lake, tucked into the foothills of the alps. The cabin they’d just abandoned was on the flattest, widest edge, surrounded by forest. At their backs, across the lake from the cabin, was a tall bluff — an impassable wall of rock. If they were going to land the rowboat somewhere, it would have to be at one of the ends. The teardrop end, tucked out of view of the cabin, made the most sense. Walker began to row.

As they entered the teardrop, the cabin about to slip out of view, Walker saw some of the creatures collected there start to move along the shore in their direction. But he was not worried. Walking along the lake’s edge to where they would land would take them at least half an hour. By then, Walker and his family would be gone.

The teardrop was narrow and surrounded by trees. They were high up, at least three thousand feet, but still below the tree line. After scanning the shore, searching for any sign of movement and finding none, Walker brought the boat in against a large flat rock that jutted out into the water, like a natural dock.

“Everybody out,” he said.

Ryan was the first one up onto the rock, his small pack on his back. Jane, still tired and hungover, yet bearing an edgy alertness, followed him up.

“What’s happening, Mom?” Ryan asked.

“I’m sure we’ll be okay,” she promised, taking him abruptly into her arms.

“Do you know why we’re here?” Ryan asked.

“We’re on vacation,” Jane said. “We needed a break, time away as a family.”

Ryan had heard all this before, and it still didn’t sound convincing. They had taken him out of school in the middle of the spring. Mom had walked away from her job. Dad had left his store in the hands of a nineteen-year-old college sophomore. And then there were the other things that had happened at around the same time, things that had left Ryan feeling sick and confused.

Standing on the rock, reaching down, Walker pulled the boat in and tucked it into some shrubs growing where the rock met the shore. The boat wouldn’t stay there, Ryan knew, but his father didn’t seem to care. It was a perfunctory act. They wouldn’t be coming back this way. They wouldn’t need the boat again.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Ryan told his mother.

“I know,” Jane admitted. “I’m sorry, honey. It’s all my fault.”

Walker was now standing over them, arms akimbo, peering up into the woods. He looked both heroic and menacing.

“Do you see a trail?” he asked.

Jane and Ryan were sitting with their backs to the forest. Turning their heads, they could see nothing but a gentle slope of bushes and trees, with no sign of a clear way through them.

“We need to find a trail,” Walker said when no one answered. “They’re well marked. There’ll be signs, with place names.”

“What about the trail we came in on?” Jane asked.

“It’s on the other end of the lake.” Walker said. “We’re not going back that way.”

“Didn’t it run across that ridge–?”

Jane abruptly stopped speaking, her eyes on the wall of rock. Seeing the sudden look of fear in her eyes, Walker and Ryan followed her gaze. A figure was moving along the bluff toward them, slowly, in a lurching stroll that was unmistakable. It was one of them, whatever they were, and it was headed in their direction. Then behind the first figure, a second appeared, followed by a third.

“It’s time to move,” Walker said, reaching down and grabbing his wife’s upper arm, lifting her. “Get up, Ryan.”

“What are they, Dad?” Ryan asked as his father nudged him off the rock and into the woods.

“I don’t know,” Walker said. “Something’s happened up here. Something’s gone wrong.”

“Are they sick?” Ryan asked.

“At the very least,” Walker said. “Let’s just get back to Bern and let the Swiss figure it out.”

***

They pushed through the trees until they found a narrow trail at the bottom of the bluff. It ascended from the lake at an easy angle, leading up to their left. They followed it until they arrived at the point where the bluff ended, and a large, open expanse greeted them.

Before them was a wide valley stretching downward to the west. At the far end, Walker thought he saw buildings — not a village, but a city. Perhaps it was Bern, but even on such a clear day, with an unobstructed view, he couldn’t be sure. The distance was too great.

Jane and Ryan were waiting for his instructions. Walker looked up the bluff toward where they’d seen the three figures, but they were still down the other side and moving slowly. If they found cover quickly, perhaps they’d be out of sight before the creatures reached the top.

Looking down at the trail, Walker saw that they were at an intersection. One branch led up the bluff toward the creatures. Another arced down and around the end of the lake, seemingly back to the cabin. A third snaked down into the valley, eventually disappearing into a long patch of forest several hundred yards away that clung to the south side of the valley. This path was their only option.

Walker pointed to the trees.

“Let’s go,” he said.

***

Ryan’s pack was small but heavy. He had, as usual, brought along too many books.

The single volume he’d snatched up from his desk as his father had rushed him out of the house had been consumed by the time they were halfway across the Atlantic. As usual, it had been nonfiction, a book with a long title about the genocide in Rwanda that he’d been unable to put down. For the rest of the flight, five or six long hours, he’d tried to occupy himself with the plane’s entertainment offerings. But the movies and TV shows had been dull and predictable, manipulative fabrications that had left him cold.

In the Zurich airport, they’d stopped for supplies, and Ryan had insisted on visiting the bookstore, where with his recent deprivation in mind he’d gone overboard. There were six books in his pack right now; two others, one of which he’d not quite finished, were back in the cabin on the nightstand in the bedroom he’d been sleeping in for the last two weeks. Whatever else was in his backpack was whatever had been inside when Walker had tossed it out into the hall. Perhaps a change of clothes. Perhaps the sneakers he hadn’t worn since Zurich. Definitely not his toothbrush, but they could replace that once they arrived in Bern.

Entering the forest, Walker in front, Jane in back, Ryan in the middle, the massive valley they’d been in disappeared, and the world once again became small. To their left, the forest climbed thickly upward; to their right it was a steep slope down. The people who’d attacked their cabin were now far behind them, and certainly unable to see them. For the first time since he’d been abruptly awakened by the destruction of his bedroom window, Ryan felt safe.

Yet uncertainty still occupied his mind, an uncertainty that had been born the morning Walker had burst into his bedroom two weeks ago and announced that they were leaving. Not only had there been no advance notice, but he’d been taken out of school in the middle of the spring. And there’d been no explanation, other than that it was urgent, necessary, unavoidable. It had even seemed that they’d left too quickly to inform his school. Ryan had packed quickly and thoughtlessly, and they had left for the airport that day.

Do you know why we’re here? Ryan had asked his mother.

We’re on vacation.

No they weren’t, Ryan knew.

The trail turned suddenly to the left and then straightened out again, a detour made necessary by a massive rock that clung to the steep slope. Beyond the rock, a heavy-set man stood, his arms at his side, his fists clenched. His mouth was open, his lips forming a dark purple oval. Again the icy green skin; again the grey, dull eyes. Like the others, he had once been human but wasn’t anymore. Seeing them, he raised his arms and his fingers uncoiled, and he lurched hungrily toward Walker.

Suddenly there were hands on Ryan’s shoulders, turning him around. It was Jane.

“Run!” she yelled, and then she flung him into the forest with a strength he could hardly believe she possessed.

“Run!!”

***

The momentum of his mother’s shove combined with the weight in his pack carried Ryan swiftly down the hill away from the trail. The forest floor was a tangle of low shrubbery that caught at his ankles, threatening to upend him. The trees were narrow and spread far apart. He reached out for one as he passed it, his palm merely scraping across its rough surface.

Up ahead he could see a horizontal gap, a road that had been cut through the forest. As he came crashing down out of the trees, a rogue branch caught the fabric of his rain jacket, jerking him backward and then spinning him around. The jacket tore and the branch released him, and he landed on his back on the road’s hard-packed dirt surface.

He was stunned from the fall, but the fear coursing through his body immediately reminded him of the threat he’d been running from. He quickly regained his feet and peered up into the forest. The man was not there, but Ryan was not surprised. Like the others, he’d been moving slowly. But the hills seemed to be full of these creatures, emerging from out of nowhere. He had speed on his side, but he and his parents were probably outnumbered. It was important, Ryan knew, to stay alert.

Standing in the middle of the road, Ryan concentrated on his breathing, which was harsh and heavy, and which prevented him from clearly hearing the sounds in the dark curtain of trees into which he was staring. He tried taking deeper breaths, filling his lungs to slow his breathing down, and gradually it worked. After a short time, he was immersed in a gentle blanket of ordinary outdoor sounds, and a sense of normalcy overtook him. For a moment he could forget the bizarre and horrific rupture that had just opened up in what had been a normal twelve-year-old American life.

A movement in the trees caught his eye, and Ryan knew that it was not one of his parents, but one of them. It was the way it was walking, slow and indirect, decidedly unhuman. Ryan knew there was no need to flee just yet. When the time came, he would be able to outrun the creature. So he would wait and see. Wait and see if Mom and Dad also emerged from the woods. They would come for him, and if he ran too far, they would never find him, and he would be lost.

When the figure in his sights stepped into a patch of daylight, Ryan saw that it wasn’t the man from the trail. This one was a woman, and she was missing a huge chunk of her body from her left collar bone down to just above her hip. Her ribs seemed to have been pried open, revealing a lung and her heart; her intestines were hanging down to the ground, trailing behind her. Whatever illness this woman had, how on earth was she still standing? Or was it an illness at all?

Then suddenly, a short distance down the road in the opposite direction, the heavy-set man from the trail tumbled out of the forest, tripping on some unseen obstacle and landing bluntly on his face. Ryan still didn’t move. He was terrified, horrified, but reassured by the distance that separated him from them. But what did it mean that the man from the trail was now here? What had happened to his parents?

Ryan shuddered.