"Not particularly, no." The CIA man leaned forward across the desk, fixing me with his unblinking happy gaze. "You're not here to be court-martialed, Captain. It has already been decided, at extremely high levels, that none of this ever happened. There never was any ma.s.sacre; there never was any crazy captain. Far too upsetting, for the folks at home. Instead, I have been empowered to offer you a very special, very important, very...sensitive mission. Carry it out successfully, and this file will disappear. You will be given an honorable discharge, and allowed to go home."

"First thing you learn in the Army," I said, "is never volunteer. Especially not for very special, important, and sensitive missions."

"Should you decline this opportunity, I am also empowered to take you out the back of this building and put two bullets in your head," said the CIA man, still smiling.

I surprised him by actually taking a moment to think about it. If this mission was too important for the Army, and too dangerous for the CIA, and they needed a monster like me to carry it out successfully...it had to involve something even worse than wiping out a whole village of noncombatants. And, I wasn't sure I wanted to go home. After everything I'd seen, and done. I still loved the memories I had, of family and friends. I didn't like to think of their faces, when they realized what had come home to them. I didn't like to think of them with a monster in their midst, walking around, hidden behind my old face.

I didn't want to stay in h.e.l.l, but there was enough of a man left in me that I knew I had no business contaminating the streets of Heaven with my b.l.o.o.d.y presence.

So I nodded to the CIA man, and he sank back into his chair, which made piteous sounds of protest as his weight settled heavily again. He opened a drawer in his desk, put away my file, and took out another. It was much thicker than mine. The cover was still blank. Not even a file number. Just like mine. The CIA man opened it, took out a glossy 8 by 10, and skimmed it across the desk to me. I looked at the photo, not touching it. The officer looking back at me had all the right stripes and all the right medal ribbons, and a bland, impa.s.sive face with no obvious signs of character or authority.

"That is Major Kraus," said the CIA man. "Excellent record, distinguished career. Wrote a good many important papers. Had a great career ahead of him, Stateside. But he wanted to be here, where the action was...where he could be a real real soldier. Somehow he persuaded his superiors to allow him to go deep in country, where he could try out some special new theories of his own. The first reports indicated that he was achieving some measure of success. Later reports were more...ambiguous. And then the reports stopped. We haven't heard anything from Major Kraus in over a year. soldier. Somehow he persuaded his superiors to allow him to go deep in country, where he could try out some special new theories of his own. The first reports indicated that he was achieving some measure of success. Later reports were more...ambiguous. And then the reports stopped. We haven't heard anything from Major Kraus in over a year.

"The Army sent troops in after him. They never reported back. We sent some of our people in-good men, experienced men. We never heard from them again. And now reports have begun trickling out of that area, mostly from fleeing native villagers. They say Kraus has a.s.sembled his own private army, and turned them loose on everything that moves. They're moving inexorably through the jungle, killing everything in their path. It isn't enemy territory any more, but it isn't ours, either. Major Kraus seems intent on carving out his own little kingdom in the jungle, and we can't have that."

"Of course not," I said. "The Army's never approved of individual ambition."

"Don't push your luck, Captain. Your mission is to go up river, all the way into the jungle to the major's last reported position, evaluate the situation, and then put an end to his little experiment."

I smiled. "I get to kill a major?"

The CIA man smiled back at me. "Thought you'd like that. If the major cannot be persuaded to rein himself in, and follow orders, you are empowered to execute him. If the situation can be brought back under control, do so. If not, just present us with the exact coordinates, and we'll send the fly boys in to wipe the whole mess right off the map. Any questions?"

"Why me?"

"Because you are completely and utterly expendable, Captain. If you should fail, we'll just find another psycho and send him up the river. It's not like there's a shortage, these days. We'll just keep sending people like you, until one of you finally gets the job done. We're not in any hurry. If nothing else, Major Kraus is at least keeping the enemy occupied."

"If I do this, and come back," I said. "Do I have to go home? Or could there be more sensitive sensitive missions for me?" missions for me?"

"Why not?" said the CIA man, smiling his crocodile smile. "We're always looking for a few good psychos."

The patrol boat they gave me was a broken-down piece of s.h.i.t called the Suzy Q. Suzy Q. The crew of three that came with her weren't much better. I gave the pilot what maps I had, and then retired to the cabin, to be alone. I didn't ask their names. I didn't want to know. They didn't matter to me, except to get me where I was going. They didn't know it, but they were even more expendable than I was. The crew of three that came with her weren't much better. I gave the pilot what maps I had, and then retired to the cabin, to be alone. I didn't ask their names. I didn't want to know. They didn't matter to me, except to get me where I was going. They didn't know it, but they were even more expendable than I was.

They didn't want to talk to me. Someone had told them who I was, and what I'd done. They maintained a safe, respectful distance at all times, and their hands never moved far from their weapons. I smiled at them, now and again, just to keep them on their toes.

I watched them die, one by one, as we headed up the winding river and deep into the dark and savage jungle. It doesn't matter how they died. The jungle just reached out and took them, in its various b.l.o.o.d.y ways. I waited for the darkness to strike me down too, but somehow its aim was always that little bit off. So when the long and twisting river finally came to its end, I was the only one left to guide the Suzie Q Suzie Q through the narrowing channels to its dark and awful source. through the narrowing channels to its dark and awful source.

The jungle pressed in close around me, trees and vegetation crowding right up to the river's edge, a harsh green world impenetrable to merely human gaze. Huge gnarled trees reached out over the water, tall branches thrusting forward to meet each other, and form a thick canopy that blocked out the sky. Light had to shoulder its way in, heavy golden shafts punching through the canopy like spotlights. The air was heavy with the thick green scents of growing things, interlaced with the sickly sweet smells of death and corruption. Great clouds of insects rose up from the river to break against the boat's prow, and then reform again behind her.

The darker it got, the more at home I felt. The other three died because they were still men, while I had left that state behind long ago. In the jungle, in all the places of the world where man is never meant to live, you cannot hope to survive if you insist on remaining a man. This is a place for beasts, for nature, red in tooth and claw, for animal instincts and brutal drives. The jungle knows nothing of human limitations like honor and sentiment, compa.s.sion and sanity.

There were still some people in the jungle. I saw them, pa.s.sing by. Grim gray silent ghosts, who had made their own bargain with the jungle. Black-pajama men and women, slipping along concealed trails, their supplies balanced on carts and bicycles. Peasant villagers, carrying their life's possessions, retreating in the face of something that could not be stopped, or bargained with, or survived. I let them go. Partly because my mission was too important to risk revealing myself, but mostly because I knew that if I started shooting, started killing, I might not be able to stop. I'd made a cage inside me to hold my beast, but the door was only closed, not locked.

I kept the beast quiet, traveling up the river, by considering all the awful things I was going to do to Major Kraus, before I finally let him die.

When the maps ran out, I just pointed the Suzie Q Suzie Q forward and kept going. The river narrowed steadily, closing remorselessly in from both sides, the crowded vegetation creeping right up to the edges of both banks to get a good look at me. I pa.s.sed the time studying the major's CIA file. There were reports of burned out and deserted villages, and wide swathes of devastated land, radiating out from Kraus' compound at the end of the river. Whole populations slaughtered, and the bodies...just gone. Taken? n.o.body knew. Kraus' private army ranged far and wide, butchering every living thing in its path, but not one dead body was ever seen afterwards, anywhere. Cannibalism, perhaps? The file had theories, ideas, guesses, but no one knew anything, where Kraus was concerned. Someone had written the words forward and kept going. The river narrowed steadily, closing remorselessly in from both sides, the crowded vegetation creeping right up to the edges of both banks to get a good look at me. I pa.s.sed the time studying the major's CIA file. There were reports of burned out and deserted villages, and wide swathes of devastated land, radiating out from Kraus' compound at the end of the river. Whole populations slaughtered, and the bodies...just gone. Taken? n.o.body knew. Kraus' private army ranged far and wide, butchering every living thing in its path, but not one dead body was ever seen afterwards, anywhere. Cannibalism, perhaps? The file had theories, ideas, guesses, but no one knew anything, where Kraus was concerned. Someone had written the words Psychological warfare? Psychological warfare? across the bottom of one page, but that was all. across the bottom of one page, but that was all.

The river finally ran out, ending in a wide natural harbor deep in the dark green heart of the jungle. The thick crumbling river banks were so close now I could reach out from the Suzie Q Suzie Q and trail my fingertips along the turgid vegetation and creepers as they drooped down into the dark waters. The thick canopy overhead blocked out the sun, plunging the river into an endless twilight, like the end of the world. I had left the world behind, to come to a place man should have left behind, long ago. We have no business here. We cannot be man, in a place like this. and trail my fingertips along the turgid vegetation and creepers as they drooped down into the dark waters. The thick canopy overhead blocked out the sun, plunging the river into an endless twilight, like the end of the world. I had left the world behind, to come to a place man should have left behind, long ago. We have no business here. We cannot be man, in a place like this.

The river banks came together, closing in like living gates, so close now I could barely squeeze the Suzie Q Suzie Q through, and then they opened out abruptly, revealing the wide calm waters of the natural harbor where Major Kraus had established his compound. It was very dark now, almost night, and at first all I could see were the lights up ahead. They jumped and flared, a sickly yellow, like so many will-o'-the-wisps. through, and then they opened out abruptly, revealing the wide calm waters of the natural harbor where Major Kraus had established his compound. It was very dark now, almost night, and at first all I could see were the lights up ahead. They jumped and flared, a sickly yellow, like so many will-o'-the-wisps.

The river banks rose sharply up around me, great clay and earth walls rising twenty, thirty feet above my head. Roots burst out of the wet earth here and there, curling around great open mouths, dark caves and caverns peering at me from the river banks. Huge centipedes crawled in and out of the openings, slow ripples moving up and down their unnaturally long bodies. The waters ahead of me were flat and still, disturbed only by the slow sullen waves preceding the boat's prow. The steady chugging of the boat's engine was disturbingly loud in the quiet, so I turned it off, allowing the boat to glide the rest of the way in. There were hundreds of lights now, blazing atop the tall river banks like so many watchful eyes.

There was no dock, as such. Just a natural protrusion of dull gray earth, thrusting out into the water. I eased the Suzie Q Suzie Q in beside it, and she lurched fitfully to a halt as her prow slammed against the earth dock in a series of slow, slowing b.u.mps. I left the boat and stepped cautiously out onto dry land. It felt like stepping out onto an alien planet and leaving my s.p.a.ceship behind. The tall earth banks were lined from end to end with flaring lights now. I craned my head back, and dozens of natives looked down at me, holding crude flaring torches. None of them moved, or spoke. They just looked. in beside it, and she lurched fitfully to a halt as her prow slammed against the earth dock in a series of slow, slowing b.u.mps. I left the boat and stepped cautiously out onto dry land. It felt like stepping out onto an alien planet and leaving my s.p.a.ceship behind. The tall earth banks were lined from end to end with flaring lights now. I craned my head back, and dozens of natives looked down at me, holding crude flaring torches. None of them moved, or spoke. They just looked.

A set of rough steps had been cut into the tall earth wall beside me, curving slowly upwards. They didn't look in any way safe or dependable, but I hadn't come this far to be put off by anything less than a gun in my face. I started up the steps, pressing my left shoulder hard against the yielding clay and earth of the river bank, careful not to look anywhere but straight in front of me. The steps squelched loudly beneath my boots, and my arm and shoulder were soon soaked with slime and seepage from the earth wall. I paused beside the first great opening, peering into the dark tunnel beyond. I seemed to sense as much as hear movement within, of something much larger and heavier than a centipede. I pressed on, stamping my boots heavily into the slippery steps to keep my balance. The natives were still looking down at me, saying nothing.

I was out of breath and aching in every limb when I finally reached the top. I took a moment to get my breath back, and coughed harshly on the rank air. The usual jungle stench of living and dying things pressed close together was overwhelmed here by a heavy stench of death and decay, close up and personal. It was like breathing in rotting flesh, like sticking your face into the opened belly of a corpse. It was a smell I knew all too well. For a moment I wondered whether all of this had been nothing but a dream, and I was still back in my village, cooling my bare feet in the river and smoking a cigarette, as I waited for them to come and find me, and all the awful things I'd done.... But this stench, this place, was too vile to be anything but real.

The natives stood before me, holding their torches, and every single one of them was dead. I only had to look at them to know. They stood in endless ranks, unnaturally still, their eyes not moving and their chests neither rising nor falling; flies buzzed and swarmed and crawled all over them. Some were older than others, their flesh desiccated and mummified. Others were so recent they still bore the dark sticky blood of the wounds that had killed them. Some had no eyes, or great holes in their torsos, packed with squirming maggots. Everywhere I looked there was some new horror, of missing limbs, or dropped off lower jaws, or pale gray and purple strings of intestines spilling out of opened-up bellies. They carried knives and machetes and vicious clubs, all of them thickly crusted with dried blood. They wore rags and tatters, almost as decayed as their bodies. Some wore what was left of army uniforms, north and south.

And then it got worse, as two of the dead men dropped their torches uncaringly onto the wet ground, and moved towards me. They did not move as living things move; there was nothing of grace or connection in their movements. They moved as though movement had been imposed upon them. It was horrible to look at; an alien, utterly unnatural thing, as though a tree had ripped up its roots and lurched forward. I started to back away, and then remembered there was nothing behind me but the earth steps, and a long drop. I wanted to scream and run and hide.

But I didn't. This was what I had come here for: to learn Major Kraus' awful secret.

The two dead men took me by the arms and hauled me forward. I didn't try to fight them. Their hands were horribly cold on my bare skin. They didn't look at me, or try to speak to me, for which I was grateful. I didn't think even I could have stood to learn what a dead man's voice sounded like.

They led me through the army of the dead, across an uneven ground soaked with blood and littered with discarded body parts. There were great piles of organs, torn away or fallen out, revealed suddenly as great clouds of flies sprang into the air at our approach. There were hacked off hands, and broken heads, faces rotted away to reveal wide smiles of perfect teeth. My dead guards walked right over them, and did not allow me time to be fastidious. By the time we got where I was going, my boots and trousers were soaked in blood and gore.

I should never have taken this mission. I only thought I knew what h.e.l.l was.

I'd never felt so scared, or so alive. After the village, after what I did there, I didn't feel much of anything. But now, surrounded by death, and the fear of something worse than death, I felt alive again. My heart hammered in my chest, and every breath was a glorious thing, despite the stench. I was here among things that couldn't be, shouldn't be...and I wanted to know more.

The men I killed never got up again. That would be awful, if they should rise up again and look at me with knowing, accusing eyes. The men who served beside me, who were cut down by an often unseen enemy-they never rose up again either. In Viet Nam, death was the one thing you could depend on. Except...not here. What had Major Kraus done, here, so far from civilization and sanity? Who knew what might be possible here, so far from science and logic and all the other things man depends on to make sense of his world? Perhaps...if you went back far enough, into the past, into the jungle, you could leave reality behind in favor of a whole new world where anything, anything at all, was possible.

My dead guards brought me to a great hole in the ground and stopped. They let go of me, and just stood there, looking at nothing. I rubbed my arms hard, where their cold flesh had touched mine, without menace or care or any feeling at all. I looked down into the hole. It seemed to fall away deep into the blood-soaked earth, but there was light at the bottom. A metal ladder had been roughly attached to one side of the wet earth. I started down it. I wanted, needed needed answers; if answers there were to be had. answers; if answers there were to be had.

The ladder went down and down, a descent long enough to raise fierce cramps in my arms and legs. It ended in a tunnel, dug deep into the earth of the tall river bank, lit by oil lamps set in niches in the earth walls. The red clay in the walls gave them a disturbingly organic quality, as though I was invited to go stumbling through the guts of some long-dead colossus, buried ages ago.

The tunnels were a maze, a warren of narrow inter-connecting pa.s.sageways, and I soon lost all sense of place, or direction. I just lurched along, following the lit tunnels, sweating profusely in the close hot air. The lamps had to be for my benefit; dead men wouldn't need them. It was no wonder the CIA man's maps had been so vague about Major Kraus' secret compound. He'd hidden it underground, to conceal just how big it was-hidden it underground, where only the dead men go. If the CIA had even suspected how big Kraus' base was, how extensive his army, they would have sent the fly boys in long ago to burn the whole place back to bare unliving stone.

Clever Kraus.

Finally I came to the heart of the labyrinth, to the place of the monster, to the awful court of Major Kraus. There was no sign, no warning, no preparation. I just rounded a corner and found myself standing in a clean, brightly-lit earth chamber. There were rushes on the floor, shelves on the walls holding books and oil lamps and an a.s.sortment of presumably precious objects. There was a table, covered in maps and papers, and two surprisingly comfortable-looking chairs. But there was no clock anywhere, or even a calendar; nothing to tell you what time it might be, as though time had no meaning here, as though it had become irrelevant in this old, old place where the dead walked. I was in the Past now, in the deep Past, in the ancient primordial jungle, and that was all that mattered.

Kraus sat in a chair behind his table, hands clasped lightly on the tabletop before him, and he watched me with calm, amused eyes. He was alive. His chest rose and fell easily as he breathed, and his smile was real if thin. His simple vitality was like a shock of cold water in the face, breaking me out of the nightmare I'd been wandering through.

I studied the man I'd come so far to find. He was stick thin, without a spare ounce of fat on him, as though all such physical weakness has been burned away in some spiritual kiln. He had sharp, aesthetic features under close-cropped hair, and even though he was sitting perfectly still and at ease, he blazed with barely suppressed nervous energy. His spotlessly clean Army uniform hung loosely about him, as though it had once fitted a much larger man. His smile was slight but genuine, and his eyes were disturbingly sane.

I nodded slowly, to the man I'd been sent to kill. I never know what to say, on occasions like this. All my old certainties had been thrown down and trampled into the dirt, but still some small spark of stubborn pride wouldn't allow me to blurt out the obvious question. Major Kraus just smiled and nodded back at me, as though he quite understood. I had no gun or knife. Dead hands had taken all my weapons from me, before I was allowed down the ladder into the underworld. I could still kill him with my bare hands. I'd been trained. But if I should fail...I didn't want to die here. Not in this awful place, where the dead didn't stay dead.

That would be terrible: to die, and still not know peace.

Kraus gestured easily for me to sit down. A calm, casual gesture, from a man who knew he held all the power in the room. Just for a moment, the major reminded me of the CIA man, back in Saigon. I sat down. Kraus smiled again, just a brief movement of the lips, revealing stained yellow teeth.

"Yes," he said. "They're dead. They're all dead. The ones who brought you here, the ones who stand guard, and the ones I send out to kill my enemies. Dead men walking, every single one of them, torn from their rest, raised up out of their graves, and set to work by me. Everyone's dead here, except except me. And now, you. Tell me your name, soldier." me. And now, you. Tell me your name, soldier."

"Captain Marlowe," I said. "Torn from my cell, raised up from my court-martial, and sent here by the CIA to kill you, Major Kraus. They're frightened of you. Of course, if they knew what you were really doing here..."

"There's nothing they can do to stop me. My army is made up of men who are beyond fear, or suffering, who cannot be stopped by bullets or bombs or napalm. Zombies, Captain Marlowe. Old voodoo magic, from the deep south of America, where the really old ways are not forgotten. You needn't worry, Captain, they won't attack you. And they certainly won't try and eat you, as they did in a cheap horror movie I saw, before I came out here. Into the real horror show, that never ends.... My men have no need to eat, any more than they need to drink, or p.i.s.s, or sweat. They are beyond such human weaknesses now. They have no appet.i.tes, no desires, and the only will that moves them is mine. I give them purpose, for as long as they last. They are my warriors of the night, my weapons cast against an uncaring world, my horror to set against the horror men have made of this place.

"War...is too important to be left to the living."

"Of course," I said numbly. "The perfect soldiers. The dead don't get tired, don't get stopped by injuries, and will follow any order you give them, without question. Because nothing matters to them any more."

"Exactly," said Kraus, favoring me with another brief smile. "I just point them in the right direction, and let them roll right over whatever lies in their path. They destroy everything and everyone, like army ants on the march. Most people won't even stand against them any more; they just turn and flee, as they would in the face of any other natural disaster. And if I should lose some men, through too much damage, I can always make up the numbers again, by raising up the fallen enemy dead.

"You're not shocked, Captain Marlowe. How very refreshing."

"'Why this is h.e.l.l, nor am I out of it,'" I murmured. "I have seen worse things than this, Major. Done worse things than this, in my time."

He leaned forward across his desk, fixing me with his terribly sane, compa.s.sionate gaze. "Yes...I can see the darkness in you, Captain. Tell what you saw, and what you did."

"I have been here before," I said. "In country, in the dark and terrible place where the old rules mean nothing, and so you can do anything, anything at all. Because no matter how bad we are, the enemy is always worse. I've seen much scarier things than zombies, in country."

"I'm sure you have," said Kraus. "They have no idea what it's like here-the real people back in their real world. Where there are laws and conventions, right and wrong, and everything makes sense. They can't know what it's like here, or why would fathers and mothers allow their sons to be sent into h.e.l.l...and then act all surprised when the command structure breaks down, army discipline breaks down, and their sons have to do awful, unforgivable things just to stay alive? What did you do, Captain, to earn a mission like this?"

"I wiped out a whole village," I said. "Killed them all: men, women and children. And then refused to say sorry."

"Why, Captain? Why would you do such a thing?"

For the first time, I was being asked the question by someone who sounded like he actually wanted to hear the truth. So I considered my answer seriously. "Why? Because I wanted wanted to. Because I to. Because I could could. No matter what you do here, the jungle always throws back something worse...I don't see the enemy as people any more, just so many beasts in the jungle. The things they've done...they give the jungle's dark savagery a face, that's all. And after a while, after you've done awful, terrible things in your turn, and it hasn't made a d.a.m.ned bit of difference...you feel the need to do more and more, just to get a response from that bland, indifferent, jungle face. You want to see it flinch, make it hurt, the way it's hurt you. That need drives you on, to greater and greater acts of savagery...until finally, you look into the face of the jungle...and see your own face looking back at you."

"I know," said Major Kraus. "I understand."

I sat slumped in my chair, exhausted by the force of my words. And Kraus smiled on me, like a father with a prodigal son.

"It's the curse of this country, this war, Captain. This isn't like any other war we ever fought. There are no real battle lines, no clear disputed territories, no obvious or lasting victories. Only a faceless enemy, an opposing army and a hateful population, prepared to do anything, anything at all, to drive us out. Any atrocity, any crime against nature or civilization, is justified to them because we are outsiders, and therefore by definition not human.

"There is only one way to win this war, Captain, and that is to be ready and willing to do even worse things to them. To embrace the darkness of the jungle in our hearts, and in our souls, and throw it in their faces. We tried to raise a light in the darkness, when we should have eaten the darkness up with spoons and made it ours-given it shape and purpose and meaning. I have done an awful and unforgivable thing here, Captain, but for the first time I am making progress. I am taking and holding territory, and I am forcing the enemy back.

"I will win this war, which my own superiors are saying cannot be won. I will win it because I am ready and willing to do the one thing the enemy is not willing to do. They are ready to fight us to the death, but I have made death a weapon I can turn against them. And after my dead warriors have subjugated this entire country, North and South, and I have won because not one living soul remains to stand against me.... Then, then then, I will take the war home. I will cross the great waters with a dead army millions strong, and I will turn them loose on the streets of America, turn them loose on all those uncaring people who sent their children into h.e.l.l.

"I will make our country a charnel house, and then a cemetery, and then, finally, the war will be over. And I can rest."

He looked at me for a long time, and his smile and his eyes were kind. "They sent you here to kill me, Captain Marlowe, those cold and uncaring men. But you won't. Because that's not what you really want. Stay here, with me, and be my Boswell; write the record of what I am doing. And then I will send it home, ahead of the army that's coming, as a warning. It's only right they should understand their crime, before they are punished for it. Tell my story, Captain Marlowe, and when I don't need you any more...I promise I will kill you, and let you stay dead. No more bad thoughts, no more bad dreams, no more darkness in the heart. You will rest easy, sleep without dreams, and feel nothing, nothing at all. Isn't that what you really want, Captain Marlowe?"

"Yes," I said. "Oh, yes."

Major Kraus smiled happily. "I shall put an end to all wars, and death shall have dominion, when Johnny comes marching home.

"'The horror! The horror!'" he said, laughing. he said, laughing.

Last Stand By Kelley Armstrong

Kelley Armstrong is the bestselling author of the Otherworld urban fantasy series, which began with Bitten Bitten, and the latest of which, Waking the Witch Waking the Witch, came out in August. She is also the author of the young-adult series Darkest Powers, consisting of three books so far: The Summoning The Summoning, The Awakening The Awakening, and The Reckoning The Reckoning. In comics, Armstrong recently finished working on a five-issue arc for Joss Whedon's Angel Angel comic book series. In addition to the previously mentioned work, which all fits into the fantasy/paranormal genre, Armstrong has also written two thrillers featuring hitwoman Nadia Stafford: comic book series. In addition to the previously mentioned work, which all fits into the fantasy/paranormal genre, Armstrong has also written two thrillers featuring hitwoman Nadia Stafford: Exit Strategy Exit Strategy and and Made to Be Broken Made to Be Broken.

Teachers have a rough job. Lousy pay, lots of unpaid overtime work grading papers, having to keep order alone in overcrowded cla.s.srooms full of unruly kids who would rather be anywhere than learning trigonometry. Not to mention all the abuse from crazy parents and ignorant lawmakers. In 1925, a twenty-four-year-old football coach named John Scopes was actually brought up on criminal charges in Tennessee for having taught students the scientific facts about human evolution. With all the drawbacks, it's understandable why so many teachers leave the profession after just a few years.

But bad as our educational system undoubtedly is, things could always be worse-say, the complete and total breakdown of civilization in the wake of an infection that causes the recently dead to rise again as terrifying monsters. That's the sort of event that really puts things in perspective, and makes you pine for the days of students not paying attention in cla.s.s. In the 1998 movie Saving Private Ryan Saving Private Ryan, a squad of WWII soldiers speculate endlessly about the former profession of their captain, before he finally reveals to them that he had been a simple schoolteacher.

War and upheaval can shuffle the world, thrusting us into roles we could have never imagined. In our next story we find another former teacher leading military forces under desperate circ.u.mstances, doing things she never thought she'd be capable of, and facing off against an enemy more relentless and implacable than she ever could have feared.

If you had to make a last stand for the survival of your race, Monica supposed there were worse places to do it. As she gazed out over the fort walls, she could imagine fields of green and gold, corn stalks swaying in the breeze.

How long had it been since she'd tasted corn? Monica closed her eyes and remembered August backyard barbecues, the smell of ribs and burgers on the grill, the chill of an icy beer can as Jim pressed it to her back, the sound of Lily's laughter as she darted past, chasing the other children with water balloons.

Monica opened her eyes and looked out at the scorched fields. She'd been the one who'd given the order to set the blaze, but there hadn't been corn in them, not for years. Only barren fields of gra.s.s and weeds that could hide the enemy, best put to the torch.

"Commander," a voice said behind her.

She turned and a pimply youth snapped his heels together and saluted. The newer ones did that sometimes, and she'd stopped trying to break them of the habit. They needed to believe they were in a proper army, with proper rules, even if they'd never worn a uniform before. It was what kept them going, let them believe they could actually win this war.

"Hendrix just radioed," the youth said. "He's bringing in the latest group of prisoners."

Monica nodded, and followed him off the ramparts. They pa.s.sed two teenage girls in scout uniforms. They nodded, gazes down, and murmured polite greetings. Monica hid a smile, thinking that, once upon a time, she'd have killed to get that respect from girls their age, back when she'd stood at the front of a cla.s.sroom.

She thought about all the kids she'd taught. Wondered where they were now, how many were Others, how many were dead... Too many in the last category, she was sure. What would they think, seeing their chemistry teacher leading the last band of resistance fighters? Could they ever imagine it? She couldn't imagine it herself some days.

As she followed the youth into the fort, Gareth swung out from the shadows. He fell into step beside her, his left foot sc.r.a.ping the floor-a broken leg that never healed quite right.