'Me, too,' I said.

Travers yelled at me across the clearing. 'You're supposed to be some hotshot expert. What killed Crawford, and where the fuck is Little Henry?'

I looked at the big man where he stood in the near dark, hands in fists at his side. He was trying to be enraged, but there was a flinching around his eyes that said the anger might be hiding other emotions. I remembered him saying that he and the son were friends. He had to be looking at the mess on the ground and thinking about that being done to his friend.

I said softly to Al and Horton, 'Could this be your missing hiker?'

'He wasn't this tall,' Al said.

'Okay, how do we know which Crawford this is?'

'Little Henry has shoulder-length hair. His dad is almost bald.'

We all looked down at the corpse. Even through the blood it was obvious that the head was almost bald. 'Okay, this is Henry senior then.'

'Looks that way,' Horton said.

'Why did they eat his face?' Al asked, and it was the kind of question that senior police officers don't ask, because it's a rookie question; there is no why to the atrocities that the bad guys do. There may be motive, pathology, but it's not really a why, because the only real answer is always the same. Why did the bad guy do the really bad thing to this victim? Because he, they, it, could. That's the real and only true answer; all the rest is just lawyer and profiler talk.

'One of the corpses in the morgue had its face attacked,' I said.

'That was one bite. This is ... this is not just one bite.' Al had asked a question that most cops stop asking by his age, but the understatement, that was all cop.

'No, it's not,' I said.

'I haven't seen all the bodies in the morgue,' Horton said.

I saw Travers moving this way out of the corner of my eye. Ares moved a little ahead of me, so the taller man would have to come through him. 'No, Ares,' I said.

He glanced at me, eyebrows raised. 'He's five inches taller than me and outweighs me by at least fifty pounds.'

'Yeah, and twenty of that fifty isn't muscle,' I said.

'But thirty of it is,' he said.

'Doesn't matter, you only get to protect me from bad guys, not other cops.'

He looked like he wanted to argue, but he stepped to one side and let me meet Travers on my own. 'Come on, hotshot, dazzle us.' He was half-shouting, but his voice was thick with unshed tears. He hadn't even let his eyes shine with them yet, but I could hear them in his voice. He was fighting so hard not to cry, and anger could help you do that. It had been my coping method of choice for years.

'He wasn't killed here,' I said, voice calm.

'Yeah, there's not enough blood. This is their dump site. Tell me something I don't know.'

'Is Little Henry as big as his dad?'

'Yeah, it's one of the reasons we were friends, because we were both big guys. We were either going to hate each other or be friends. We were friends.'

'Al said that they called out, said they'd found something, and then nothing.'

'Yeah, I was there; why are you telling me shit I already know!' He yelled it at me. I just let the rage wash over me. This was the father of his good friend, who was still missing. I'd cut him slack.

'Did you hear fighting, shouts, cry for help?'

He shook his head. 'No, nothing.'

'Were they trained fighters?'

'Henry was a recon Marine and he worked out at the gym. He was the one who taught Little Henry and me to box. Little Henry was special forces.'

'Two big men six-five.'

'Little Henry was taller six-seven.'

'Okay, two very big guys, both trained to fight. There's no person, or zombie, that I know of that could take them both out so quick that neither had time to shout for help or shout a warning.'

Travers seemed to think about it. 'No, they wouldn't go quiet. They'd both fight. Little Henry was different when he got out of the military. He never talked about it, but something bad happened and he didn't like people so much. I think that's why he went into business with his dad. Fewer people and a lot of time out here; they both loved being out in the woods, on the mountain.' I wondered if he realized he'd used past tense for his friend; probably not.

'Then why did they go with the monsters?' I asked.

'I don't know!' He yelled it at me and came close enough to loom over me. At six-five to my five-three he loomed good, but I'd been the smallest kid in class all my life; I was used to being loomed over.

I did have my hands loose to my sides and had put one foot ahead of the other. It wasn't enough of a stance to give Travers a reason to up the violence, but I was ready to move if I had to. He was a cop, but he was also a big guy, and he was processing the loss of the man on the ground and his missing friend. Grief fucks with you; it makes you do things you wouldn't normally do, like take a swing at a coworker.

Horton stepped up. 'Officer Travers, let's take a walk.'

'No, Blake is supposed to be the monster expert. She hasn't told us anything. She's asked questions, fucking questions, and Henry's lying there ... like that.' He turned away and started walking so we wouldn't see the tears.

Horton started to follow him, but Al said, 'Let him go.' Horton looked like he'd argue and go after him, but in the end he let the older man's advice stand.

Ares asked, 'How did you know he wouldn't take a swing at you?'

'I didn't,' I said.

Ares raised eyebrows at me again and gave me the look the comment deserved. 'You know, it's hard to protect you if you order me off every time large, angry men start getting up in your face.'

'This is the first time I've done that.'

'To me, but I've heard stories from the other guards who do your detail more.'

'Yeah, I'm a pain in the ass.'

'No, well, yes.' He smiled, shook his head, frowned. 'Anyway, you are a bad mark.'

'Yeah, I am.'

'This has to be our killer zombies,' Al said.

'Why?' I asked.