resting against the wall of the compartment; her face was pale and damp, her eyes open but drained of energy. Mausami had done her best to clean and bandage Alicia’s injured leg the night before, but Michael could tell the wound was serious. Only Amy seemed to be actually sleeping. She was curled on the floor beside him, her knees pulled to her chest. A fan of dark hair lay over her cheek, pushed to and fro by the bouncing of the truck.
The memory hit him like a slap.
Sara, his sister, was gone.
He remembered running as fast as he could, through the kitchen and out onto the loading dock and into the street with the others, only to end up surrounded—smokes everywhere, the street was like a goddamn smoke party—and then the truck with its immense plow driving toward them, spewing its jet of flame. Get in, get in, the woman on top was yelling at him. And a good thing she had, because Michael had found himself, at just that moment, paralyzed with fear. Nailed to the ground with it. Hollis and the rest of them were yelling, Come on, come on, but Michael couldn’t move a muscle. Like he’d forgotten how. The truck was no more than ten meters away but it could have been a thousand. He turned and as he turned one of the virals locked eyes with him, cocking its head in that funny way they did, and everything seemed to slow down in a way that wasn’t good. Oh boy, a voice in Michael’s head was saying, oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy, and that was when the woman hit the viral with the flamethrower, coating it with a jet of liquid fire. It crisped up like a ball of fat. Michael actually heard the pop. Then someone was pulling him by the hand—Amy of all people, whose strength was surprising, more than he would have guessed from the little thing she was—and she shoved him into the truck.
Now it was morning. Michael felt himself pushed forward as the vehicle decelerated. Beside him, Amy’s eyes shot open; she rolled into a sitting position and drew her knees to her chest once more, her gaze fixed on the door.
The truck drew to a halt. Caleb scrambled to the window and peered outside.
“What do you see?” Peter had risen to a crouch; his hair was matted with dried blood.
“There’s some kind of structure, but it’s too far away.”
Footsteps on the roof, the sound of the driver’s door, opening and closing again.
Hollis was reaching for his rifle.
Peter put a hand out to stop him. “Wait.”
Caleb: “Here they come—”
The door swung open, blazing their eyes with daylight. Two backlit figures stood before them, clutching shotguns. The woman was young, with dark hair shorn close to her scalp; the man, much older, had a soft, wide face and a nose that looked punched and a few days’ growth of beard. Both were still encased in their bulky body armor, making their heads seem strangely undersized.
“Hand over your weapons.”
“Who the hell are you people?” Peter demanded.
The woman cocked her shotgun. “Everything. Knives, too.”
They disarmed, sliding their guns and blades along the floor in the direction of the door. Michael didn’t have much more than a screwdriver left—he’d lost his rifle in the dash from the hotel, never having fired the damn thing once—but he handed it over anyway. He certainly didn’t want to get shot over a screwdriver. While the woman collected their weapons, the second figure, who had yet to utter a word, kept his gun trained on all of them. In the distance, Michael could make out the shape of a long, low building set against a bulge of barren hills.
“Where are you taking us?” Peter asked.
The woman lifted a metal pail from the ground and placed it on the floor of the truck. “If you have to piss, use this.” Then she slammed the door.
Peter slapped the wall of the truck. “Fuck.”
They drove on. The temperature was rising steadily. The truck decelerated again, turning west. For a long time the vehicle bounced violently; then they began to climb. By now the air in the cabin had become intolerably hot. They drank the last of their water; no one had used the pail.
Peter pounded on the wall that separated them from the truck’s cab. “Hey, we’re roasting back here!”
Time passed, and passed some more. No one spoke; just breathing was an effort. It seemed that some