"What about the women?"

"Bring them with us. We can't expect the boys to behave all the time."

"What about that b.i.t.c.h Meat has hooked up with, and the little girl?"

"Bring them along. Just make sure they go missing on the way to Andover."

"Understood." Carter turned and walked out.

Price waited until Carter had left, and then withdrew the bottle of Jack Daniels and the tumbler from his drawer. He poured himself another two inches of whiskey and swigged. Now he celebrated the change in their luck.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT.

Another string of expletives came from the school bus, which made Robson chuckle. It had been like this for the past hour. Being the most entertainment he had in months, he sat down on the plastic chair in front of the garage and nursed along his morning cup of coffee.

Jennifer exited a few minutes later. Upon seeing him, her eyes lit up. "Good morning."

He raised his mug as a greeting. "Morning."

"How'd you sleep?"

"Pretty good. Everything is falling into place."

From inside the bus, Caslow yelled, "Son of a b.i.t.c.h!"

Jennifer stared at the bus and back to Robson, confusion in her eyes.

"That's Caslow. I woke him up this morning and told him he had to clean up the school bus before we modify it."

"What did he do with the bodies?"

"I drove him up the road a few miles and had him throw them in a drainage ditch. Now he's cleaning up the gore." Robson chuckled again. "He's thrown up twice already."

"Good."

"You really hate that guy."

"Do you blame me? The coward let a rape gang kidnap his wife and daughter because he was too afraid to stand up for them. I hope he chokes on his own puke."

"Don't be too hard on him."

"Please tell me you don't feel sorry for that little p.r.i.c.k?"

"Not at all. What he did was a disgrace. As a cop, I ran into a lot of guys like him, guys who, at a critical moment, panicked and allowed a loved one to get hurt because of their inaction. Every one of them regretted that decision. Caslow knows what he did, and what is happening to his wife and daughter, and it's eating him up inside. He's going to have to deal with the guilt and shame for the rest of his life, which is worse than anything you can do to him." Robson didn't add that he knew the feeling well. A mental image of his fiancee Susan flashed through his mind.

"Sorry."

"Don't be. He's a useless piece of s.h.i.t. He knows that, he doesn't need us reminding him of it."

Caslow emerged from the school bus carrying a pail full of gore. He stumbled down the steps and dropped to his hands and knees, nearly spilling the contents, and vomited again. This time he had nothing left to spew, so he dry heaved onto the pavement. Jennifer glared at him. Robson noted that her expression still showed contempt, although not as intense as previously. He stood up and tenderly rubbed her shoulder, eliciting a smile. She reached up, patted his hand, and went back inside.

Robson stepped over to Caslow and crouched beside him. "You okay?"

Caslow hacked and shook his head.

"Here." Robson reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small plastic bottle of water, handing it to Caslow. "Rinse your mouth."

Twisting off the cap, Caslow poured some of the water into his mouth, swished it around, and spat it onto the cement, gagging in the process. He wiped his sleeve across his mouth. "The bus is clean. Are you done punishing me for what I did to my family?"

"You'll do a better job of that than I ever could." Robson offered his hand. "I made you clean the bus because it's time you started pulling your weight around here."

Caslow took the hand and raised himself off the ground. "Good, because I want to do more. I want to go with you guys when you raid the compound."

"No."

"Why not?" Caslow demanded.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d is finally showing a little backbone, Robson thought. He still didn't want him along. "I already have enough people."

"Bulls.h.i.t. It's because you don't trust me."

"It has nothing to do with trust. You don't know how to handle yourself. You'll get yourself killed."

"That's my decision, not yours."

"It is my decision because you might wind up getting one of us killed in the process. End of discussion."

Robson turned and headed back to the garage. Caslow raced ahead and cut him off. All the defiance had drained from him. "Please, listen to me for just a minute. You have to let me go. You have to give me a chance to redeem myself. I know what I did was selfish and f.u.c.ked up. The only chance I have of ever winning back my family's trust is if I go with you. If you get them out while I'm waiting safely back here, I've lost them forever."

What Caslow said made sense, although Robson felt that redeeming himself was not Caslow's only reason for asking to go along. A part of him thought Caslow might be hoping for death by suicide mission. Not that it mattered. He had asked for a chance for recover his dignity with his loved ones, a chance Robson would never get, and as such he couldn't deny Caslow's request.

"Okay. You'll go in with me."

A sense of relief washed over Caslow. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me. You have no idea what type of a s.h.i.t storm you've just volunteered for. Now come with me." Robson placed an arm around Caslow's shoulder and led him into the garage. "I'm going to teach you how to use your weapon."

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE.

Emily missed their target by twenty miles, not bad considering she had navigated solely by the stars. They had made land near Grand Isle on the southern coast of Louisiana, west of the Mississippi River. Cruising southeast, she soon found the river entrance. Natalie had expected the waterway to either be barricaded to traffic or so jammed with abandoned vessels as to be unnavigable. To her surprise, the river was clear. No ships, no debris, no rotters. It looked like no one had traversed the river for years. Natalie didn't question her luck. G.o.d knew they needed all they could get. However, as Emily steered the yacht up the Mississippi, Natalie had called the Angels on deck in full uniform and gear to deal with any potential threats.

It had taken them the better part of the afternoon to make their way along the hundred miles of river that snaked through the wetlands south of New Orleans. For hours, they had seen no signs of the living or the living dead, which only built up the tension. The afternoon sun had begun making its slow descent toward the western horizon when they saw the first signs of civilization, an oil refinery and warehouses mixed in with small bedroom communities. Down the river sat the suburban community of Belle Cha.s.se and, beyond that, the New Orleans skyline.

"This is creepy," Amy mumbled.

"What?" Natalie asked.

Amy pointed to Belle Cha.s.se along the port beam. "There's no sign of rotters. You'd think so close to New Orleans we'd see at least a few of them roaming about."

Natalie raised the binoculars. She saw no activity. She crossed to starboard and found Ari. "Have you seen any rotters?"

"Not since we entered the Mississippi. Why?"

"The girls haven't seen anything on the other side of the river either."

"That's not good."

"Yeah." Natalie scanned the river bank. "Where the h.e.l.l are they?"

"Let's hope we don't find out."

The Mississippi turned sharply to the right and entered a long U-turn before flowing into New Orleans. Here the suburbs showed signs of having experienced the outbreak. Roads barricaded and clogged with abandoned vehicles, some bearing witness to vicious rotter attacks with shattered windows and blood streaks. Houses boarded up or ransacked. Blood smeared across building facades. An entire neighborhood burnt to the ground. Along the sh.o.r.e, dozens of small boats remained tied to the docks, some partially sunk. Skeletons lay scattered along the water's edge. Still no signs of rotters.

All that changed when Emily turned the yacht around the southern bend and sailed into the downtown area. The incessant moaning caught their attention first. It was low key yet overwhelming, like the buzz that emanated from a large beehive. As the yacht approached the Cross City Connector Bridge, Natalie noticed a series of boards attached to the structure. Several had fallen off, but the basic message remained intact: a red-painted arrow pointing to the left with the words SAVE US!!!!! As they drew closer to the bridge, she saw where the moaning came from.

Thousands of rotters filled the southern bank of the Mississippi, stretching for several hundred yards along the waterfront and inland. They didn't shamble aimlessly. The attention of every one of them was directed toward a brick warehouse located six hundred feet before the bridge and one hundred fifty feet inland. Each wall of the building had inscribed across the top in bright red paint the words HUMANS INSIDE HELP US. The living dead swarmed the structure, shoving and pushing their way forward.

"Oh, dear G.o.d," said Sandy. "On the roof."

Natalie raised the binoculars and, as she focused in on where Sandy gestured, she felt the nausea fill her stomach.

Five people stood on the roof three men, a woman, and a little girl of about six. Even from this distance she could tell they were in terrible shape. Their bodies were emaciated and their worn clothes hung off of them. The three men jumped up and down and screamed. The woman pointed to the yacht and said something to the little girl, and then both began waving. Below them, the rotters grew excited. As one, the horde of thousands surged toward the warehouse, their hands groping toward the food. Their moaning increased until it became a roar that drowned out the yacht's engines.

All the Angels moved toward the port gunwale. Tiara shook her head. "I can't imagine what they must be going through."

"The warehouse is surrounded," said Josephine. "We'll never get near it."

"How are we going to get them out?" Ari asked.

"We're not," Natalie stated.

"What do you mean?" Amy asked.

"We can't just leave them there," protested Stephanie.

"We can and we will." Natalie took a step forward. "There's no way to save them without all of us getting killed, and I'm not even going to risk it. I feel sorry for them, but our job is to get this vaccine to Omaha. If we don't, a lot more people than those five are going to die. Understood?"

A despondent chorus of approvals came from the Angels.

"Good. Now get back to your stations and ignore them."

The Angels went back to guarding the yacht. Natalie raised the binoculars and looked one final time at the warehouse. The woman had dropped to her knees and was crying, clutching the little girl in her arms. Two of the men had sat down on the roof, one of them holding his head in his hands and shaking it. The third one screamed at them and raised the middle fingers of both hands high above his head. Not that she blamed them. She would feel the same way under the circ.u.mstances. That wouldn't do anything to a.s.suage her guilt over leaving them to die.

She waited until the support columns for the Cross City Connector Bridges blocked her view of the warehouse before turning her back on the scene.

CHAPTER FORTY.

By now the feeding of Lee had become routine. Windows would come in with his meal, Lee would sit up and make himself as presentable as possible, and Cindy would scurry off and sit in the corner. She had closed off even more than usual following the attack in the kitchen, undoing all the progress Windows had made to break her out of her sh.e.l.l. Lee would glance over at Cindy every so often, concern on his face. Usually they kept the conversations casual, focusing on any topic that would get their minds off of the h.e.l.l they were going through, even if for only a few minutes. Today, Windows wanted to share the news.

"Did you hear?" Windows asked as she fed Lee his dinner. "We're moving."

"You and Cindy?" he asked with a tremble in his voice.

"The whole camp. One of your son's foraging parties found an empty gated community not far from here. There are houses that haven't been ransacked and a wall that can keep out rotters. We'll be moving in a few days. The best part is you'll finally get out of this box."

Lee frowned. "I'll just be trading this prison for a nicer one."

Windows' wanted to yell at him for being so negative, then realized he was right. Nothing would change for them. Price would shove his father into the damp bas.e.m.e.nt of one of the homes, and she would still have to f.u.c.k Meat, only now it would be in a bed rather than on a mattress on the floor. And Cindy would still be in danger. Physically, the girl might survive the coming winter; emotionally, Windows was about to lose her forever.

Windows fed Lee a forkful of beans. Chewing, he glanced over at Cindy and back to Windows. "You two can't go with the others when they move."

"That's easier said than done."

"If you want to live you'll find a way." Lee said it with such force it took Windows by surprise.

"What do you mean?"