When they emerge from the police station the sun is all the way down, leaving only a residual orange glow as it journeys west. Down where Pine intersects Broadway, a few street lamps flicker on. Nora sees the big man and his woman trudging steadily up the hill. And now someone else. Another man trailing an awkward distance behind them, like a surly teen who doesn’t want to be seen with his parents. So they’re gaining converts. Trying to start a hive. Even the Dead want a family.
Well you can’t have mine, she mutters under her breath, and pulls Addis the other way.
Thirty-four miles north of the police station, a young girl who recently killed a young boy is watching blue and beige houses flicker through the headlights of her family’s SUV. Her father’s eyes are tight on the road, her mother’s on everything around the road, pistol at the ready should anything incongruous emerge from this idyllic suburban scene. They are traveling later than they usually do, later than is safe, and the girl is glad. She hates sleeping. Not just because of the nightmares, but because everything is urgent. Because life is short. Because she feels a thousand fractures running through her, and she knows they run through the world. She is racing to find the glue.
Thirty-four miles south of this girl, a man who recently learned he is a monster is following two other monsters up a steep hill in an empty city, because he can smell life in the distance and his purpose now is to take it. A brutish thing inside him is giggling and slavering and clutching its many hands in anticipation, overjoyed to finally be obeyed, but the man himself feels none of this. Only a coldness deep in his chest, in the organ that once pumped blood and feeling and now pumps nothing. A dull ache like a severed stump numbed in ice—eft/ply what was there is gone, but it hurts. It still hurts.
And three hundred feet north of these monsters are a girl and boy who are looking for new parents. Or perhaps becoming them. Both are strong, both are super smart and super cool, and both are tiny and alone in a vast, merciless, endlessly hungry world.
All six are moving toward each other, some by accident, some by intent, and though their goals differ considerably, on this particular summer night, under this particular set of cold stars, all of them are sharing the same thought:
Find people.
“Can I get my flashlight?” Addis asks as they enter a tree-lined residential area. Nora recognizes a few of the towering mansions they saw from the highway.
“The stars are plenty bright. I don’t want people seeing us.”
“But I thought we’re looking for people!”
“Not at night. Bad people come out at night.”
“We’re out at night.”
“Okay, bad people and stupid people. But we’re not looking for either of those.”
He swallows hard and takes a deep breath. “I just swallowed the bite I took back at the police station.”
“I know it’s gross, Addy, but look on the bright side. You’ll never have to poop.”
His face freezes, then he snickers. “What?”
“There’s zero waste in this stuff. Your body absorbs all of it. So no poop.”
He laughs explosively, and Nora laughs at his laughter. “Poop,” he repeats with supreme satisfaction, as if savoring the world’s most perfectly crafted joke.
“Basically what you’re eating is life.”
“What?”
“It’s made out of the same stuff our cells use for energy. So it’s basically human life condensed into a powder.”
“We’re eating people?”
“It’s not people. It’s just made out of the same stuff.”
“Oh.”
Nora glances over her shoulder. The street is dark except for the faint sheen of a crescent moon rising. She has to strain to make out the distant silhouettes stumbling along behind her. They seem to keep a steady pace at all times, and it occurs to her that if she and Addis were to sprint at full speed for as long as they could, they might be able to finally lose their stalkers. Except that despite being slow, the Dead have two big advantages: they can smell the Living from half a mile away, and they never have to stop. Nora realizes that sooner or later, she will have to deal with them.
“What about there?” Addis says, stopping to look at a relatively modest two-story estate. The place is an odd study in contrasts. It’s an elegant, old-fashioned building, rustic red brick with white window frames and knob-topped railings on its second-floor balcony, but it has the security measures of an inner-city bank branch. Thick, wrought-iron bars on all the windows, cameras on every door, and a tall iron fence around the whole yard. The fence isn’t much help due to the front gate lying flat on the ground, but still…
“Let’s take a look,” Nora says.
She pulls out her flashlight and her hatchet. Addis eft/punddoes the same. They begin with a quick circuit of the yard, checking the window bars, checking the doors. All intact, all locked. A Maserati convertible covered in dried blood and claw marks is the only thing out of the ordinary. In fact, the yard is oddly well-kept, the shrubberies still in neat rows, the lawn weedy but not wild.
“All clear,” Addis says in cop-voice.
“These window bars are pretty wide. Think you could fit?”
He tests his head against the bars. Pushing his ears flat, he could probably squeeze through. “Want me to break in?” he asks, smiling deviously. He might make a better robber than cop.
“Let’s check the rest of the doors first.”
They come back around to the front. Nora is surprised to find the front door—a huge, solid oak slab with reinforced hinges—unlocked. Slightly ajar. They step inside. Nora locks it behind them and clicks on her flashlight. The interior is no less luxurious than she expected. The usual exotic hardwoods and leather, paintings by real artists hanging casually in the hall like it’s no big deal.