"You speak for your group?"

Mack looked behind him at the huddled figures that had pressed forward just slightly in an attempt to overhear what was being said. "Yeah. I speak for the group."

Harper pointed up to the top of the hill, over which he could just make out the bulk of the lead LMTV's cab. "We got a convoy of vehicles just on top of that hill. If you agree to play nice, we can help each other out and you're welcome to join us up there."

Mack nodded. "I'll let the others know."

Harper watched the other man turn and start back towards his group. Bringing his rifle in a little tighter, Harper turned to face his Humvee and made his way back to it. From the shadowy interior, he could see Julia watching him as he drew nearer.

"So, what's the deal?" she asked as he pulled the pa.s.senger door open.

Harper sat with a groan. "More refugees. On the run."

"Where from?"

"Don't know." He pointed a thumb back. "Gonna do a little meet and greet up at the convoy. Might get some useful intel out of them." He looked at Julia. "Discreetly keep some of our boys around our trucks, and tell them to watch closely. We don't know these people."

Dawn started as a light blue smudge on the horizon. By then, the convoy was filled with the quiet rumble of conversations held between people that did not want to be overheard by anything lurking in the woods. The two groups mingled and pestered each other with an endless slew of questions, while Harper and Mack stood at the tailgate of the Humvee Julia had driven.

Mack held a water bottle in one hand, and an MRE "entree" in the other. Between gulps of water and spoonfuls of chili mac, he stared out at the small crowd and spoke in a low voice. "Most of us are from Danville, Virginia, but a few are from further up north. Three weeks ago I was living with a group of survivors, doin' alright for ourselves. Took up shop in an old, stand-alone grocery store." He shrugged. "We made it work. Me and fourteen others."

He took another enormous bite of food, washed it down with some water. "About three weeks ago we're out hittin' a neighborhood for sc.r.a.ps-water, canned food, anything we can find-and we come across a group of five. They tell us there ain't nothing left up north, and that we better get up and leave out while we got the opportunity."

Mack paused. "Didn't believe 'em. But maybe a week after that, we wake up and hear this noise. Man..." his eyes found Harper's like he was looking for something to cling to. "...I can't even really describe it. Honestly, I thought it was a jet. There were so many of them. So loud. All of them screamin' back and forth like that."

He pushed his food around inside the brown package. "We didn't have time to take anything. Just had to leave. Lot of folks didn't make it out, or got separated. I was by myself. No idea what happened to the others." He tossed his head in the direction of his group. "Met up with these folks a couple days after that, and we been on the run ever since."

Harper folded his arms across his chest and waited what he felt was an appropriate amount of time to show deference to the man's story. "You said you've been moving for the last twenty-four hours. Something rushing you?"

"Yeah," Mack finished his food and crumpled the plastic pouch that it came in. "There's a big crowd of 'em, seem to be following us. We noticed them a few nights ago. Or heard them anyways. I recognized the sound from when I heard them hit Danville."

Harper swallowed, wished for his own bottle of water to cure his suddenly dry mouth. "How many?"

"Can't say," Mack made an uncomfortable face. "We haven't laid eyes on 'em yet. The one that hit Danville was ma.s.sive. Packed the streets. At least a few thousand, I'd say. Probably more." He played with the cap of his water bottle. "But I can't say about this new crowd. h.e.l.l, maybe it's the same ones. Maybe they been following us all the way from Danville."

Harper swore under his breath. "When's the last time you heard them?"

Mack looked skyward, as though the answer were up there somewhere. But whatever he had intended to say was lost in a sudden swelling of shouts, someone screaming, and a third person yelling, "Drop it! Drop it!"

And then a single, jarring gunshot.

CHAPTER 12: BAD GUYS.

In the span of a second, the quiet gathering erupted into chaos.

It was like a chain reaction, beginning at the back end of the second LMTV, where the noises had come from, and then surging out through the crowd like ripples in a pond. Harper watched in amazement as the people began to move about, mindless and panicked, like an anthill that had been kicked. They converged at the back end of the LMTV, pressing in, and then the two groups began to separate like oil and water.

Harper was off the tailgate of the Humvee and running. He plunged into the crowd, shoving his way through and not realizing until he was already mired in a tangle of bodies that he hadn't grabbed his rifle. He hazarded a glance back, couldn't see the Humvee through the bodies, but could see Mack, a head taller than everyone else, moving in his wake.

It seemed everyone in the crowd was yelling something, and in the mess of voices, Harper could not hear anyone in particular, but instead snips of voices and words: "Help him!"

"He's dead!"

"Get back!"

"...move..."

"I told him..."

"Don't do it!"

Harper burst through the crowd at the end of the LMTV and found himself in a tight circle, surrounded on one side by Mack's people, and on the other by his own. In the middle of the circle were four people. One laid on the ground, motionless. A hatchet-faced man with wide, dead eyes that stared up at the gray sky, black blood pooling around his chest. Julia stood over the body, her hands covering the wounds, shouting at someone to get her medical pack.

A man Harper didn't recognize, dressed in filthy rags, was bent at the waist as though he experienced some horrible abdominal pain, pointing at the dead body on the ground and screaming. Watching all of this stood Mike Reagan, his rifle at the ready, visibly shaking, his eyes so wide they seemed to take up his entire face.

Mack burst through. "What the f.u.c.k happened?" he said breathlessly.

The man that had been screaming at Julia and Mike turned, his arm still outstretched, pointing accusingly at Mike. His wild eyes bounced between Harper and Mack. "They f.u.c.kin' killed him! That b.a.s.t.a.r.d f.u.c.king killed him! They killed Jace!"

Harper moved quickly across the narrow encirclement to where Mike stood. "Mike! What happened?" he yelled over the shouting crowd.

Mike shook his head in disbelief. "He was trying to steal one of our rifles..."

A random voice: "That man's a d.a.m.n liar!"

"...I told him to stop and he tried to shoot me!"

Harper looked at the body. It was laying on its back, the left arm outstretched across the concrete, the other lain along his side, but with Julia hovering over him, Harper couldn't tell what that hand was holding. Nowhere did he see one of their rifles.

"Mike," he shook his head. "I don't see the rifle. He tried to shoot you with the rifle?"

Mack's voice shot through the noise: "Harper! You wanna tell me what the f.u.c.k's going on here?"

Mike blinked rapidly. "It wasn't a rifle. It was a little gun. A little silver gun. He pulled it out of his waistband and I told him to drop it. I told him to drop it, I swear! But he just kept pointing it at me! I thought he was gonna shoot me, Harper! I didn't know what to do!"

Harper realized his pulse was slamming through his body, adrenaline making it hard to think, making it hard to fully comprehend what was going on around him. He looked behind Mike, found the first face he recognized and grabbed it by the shoulder.

It was Gray.

They were sandwiched now between the two LMTVs. The one whose grill faced them was the only LMTV they'd equipped with an M2. Harper pointed to it and put his mouth nearly to Gray's ear. "Get on that turret. If s.h.i.t goes bad, you gotta do it, okay?"

Gray's face seemed frozen, but he nodded. "Okay."

Harper released his grip on the man's shoulder and he disappeared.

Harper turned back to face Mack. One of Harper's people burst through the crowd, carrying Julia's medical pack, which he slid to her. She pulled herself off of the body just long enough for Harper to see the man's right hand and the silver revolver still clutched in its grip.

That son of a b.i.t.c.h...

Harper took two steps towards Mack. "What the f.u.c.k are you tryin' to pull?"

Mack looked genuinely confused. "What? You just shot one of my guys!"

"He was trying to f.u.c.king steal from us!"

"That's bulls.h.i.t!" the man beside Mack cried hysterically. "That's bulls.h.i.t and you know it! They're making this s.h.i.t up, Mack! They're making it up!"

The crowd of survivors behind Mack grew louder at this last cry, and pressed in closer. Harper looked past Mack at the angry faces. Tried to tear his eyes away and look at their hands. Saw blunt instruments, a few pistols, a shotgun.

s.h.i.t s.h.i.t s.h.i.t.

Harper pointed to them, not able to control his shaking hand. "Mack! Push you people back!"

"You need to explain..."

"Get them back, G.o.dd.a.m.n it!" Harper yelled. He looked to his right, saw Gray's torso working its way into the turret. "If your people aren't on the other side of the road in ten seconds, we're gonna open fire!"

Please don't make me do it...please don't make me do it...

Mack followed Harper's gaze, saw the big-barreled M2 swing towards the crowd. His hands went out and he began to backpedal, shouting as he did. "Back it up, people! Back it up!"

From behind him, Harper could hear Mike Reagan's voice.

"Is he dead? Oh my G.o.d..."

Harper turned, saw Mike staring at the body, Julia resting backward on her heels, b.l.o.o.d.y bandages in her hand and sterile packages for the dressings tossed about like bits and pieces of white confetti. She looked at Harper and shook her head.

"s.h.i.t!" Mike's hand went to his head. "I didn't mean to kill him!"

Harper stared at the man, flabbergasted. "You f.u.c.king shot him in the chest, Mike! What'd you think was gonna happen?" Never mind the fact that the stranger had pulled a gun on him. Mike had had every right in the world to take the shot, but the simple statement that he didn't mean to kill him threw Harper through a loop.

Mike's gaze rose, and Harper immediately regretted letting the words slip out of his mouth. He should be standing behind his man, not hanging him out to dry in front of a hostile crowd. He raised a hand is if to apologize, but Mike turned away, his face clouding.

Harper suddenly realized how quiet it had become. He could hear his own breath huffing, the steady shifting of people's feet, the great open silence of these abandoned roadways. It was the kind of silence that roared, and made city dwellers like himself fidget uncomfortably like a small man in the presence of something vast.

He looked back to his left, to the crowd of strangers. They stared back, sullen and demur, and they stared at their fallen friend. Or maybe he was just as much a stranger to them as he was to Harper. Maybe they had just met him on the road. But he was one of them nonetheless.

The turret creaked as Gray raised the muzzle of the M2 just slightly.

Mack held his hands as though surrendering. "Look...we don't have a fight with you folks. We're just...we're just trying to make it out here...please..."

Harper was incredulous. "We're not..." he started, but the rest of the words crashed around inside his head and never made it out of his mouth: We're not the bad guys. We didn't ask for this. We didn't hunt you down, or lure you into a trap. We fed you, we gave you water and medicine, we treated you like friends even though we didn't f.u.c.king know a d.a.m.ned one of you. And you're going to stand there and look at me like I'm the bad guy? Because one of your s.h.i.tbag friends bit off more than he could chew? Like you have to beg for your life because we're just a band of bloodthirsty thieves?

We're not the bad guys.

We're not the bad guys.

It all died behind his tongue like burning cinders. He knew d.a.m.n well that saying it would do nothing for him. It would do nothing for anyone, except to make him feel better for the brief moment in time after he felt he'd said his peace, but in the end those words would only invite more trouble. More argument. It would only lengthen things, when all he wanted was for them to be over.

"Just let us go," Mack continued. "We've got no problem with you."

Harper simply stared, because there was no other expression or motion that seemed appropriate in that moment. "Fine," he said woodenly. "Go."

The crowd began to edge away. Bitter glares, mixed with sadness, and even confusion. Gradually, they turned southward and began to walk, while Gray followed them cautiously with the muzzle of the M2. A breeze swept down the middle of the road, along the white hash marks that seemed to delineate the two groups. It felt tense as though someone might break it with shouts of anger, but both sides remained silent until the group of strangers had pa.s.sed the end of the convoy.

Harper turned back, found Julia standing over the body.

"What do you want us to do with this guy?" she asked.

"Put him on the side of the road."

Julia shifted her weight. "We're not going to bury him?"

Harper cleared his throat loudly. "No. We're not going to bury him. His own people didn't give a s.h.i.t enough to ask for his body, I'm certainly not going to trouble my own people with it." He pointed to the shoulder of the road. "Put him over there, then pack up and let's get the f.u.c.k out of here."

Harper left them to it, walked along the right side of the convoy, looking for Mike Reagan. The fire seemed to leave his skin, the adrenaline abating, and the cold surrounded him again. He hunched his shoulders. His fingers felt cold and stiff. He shoved them in his coat pockets.

Harper found his rifle leaning against the back end of the Humvee where he'd sat. He s.n.a.t.c.hed it up as though it had wronged him, slung into it and walked around the corner of the Humvee to the lead LMTV. He opened the pa.s.senger's side door.

Inside were both Mike and Torri Reagan. Torri in the pa.s.senger seat, looking down at him. Mike in the driver's seat with an expression that said he didn't want to talk.

Harper plowed ahead anyway. "Mike, you didn't do anything wrong. You were completely in the right for shooting that motherf.u.c.ker."

Mike nodded, stared out the windshield. "I didn't see the revolver."

"What?"

"I didn't see the revolver until after I'd already shot him."

Harper compressed his lips. Wondered what the h.e.l.l to say to that. Did it change anything? At the end of the day, what would have happened if Mike hadn't taken that shot? Would the stranger have pulled the gun anyway? Shot Mike? Would Harper and his group be burying Mike because he hesitated too long?

"I saw him trying to get something out of his waistband," Mike continued. "But I couldn't see what it was. I just a.s.sumed it was a gun. So I shot him. That's why I said I didn't mean for him to die, because I didn't mean to shoot him in the chest. I just meant to...you know...wing him. Scare him off."

It was done. It was over with. There would be no trial, no hearing, no public backlash. The only thing left was whether Harper would support Mike. Whether Mike would trust him. Whether Mike would trust himself to make that decision in the future, rather than hesitating and getting himself hurt, or someone else hurt.

Harper shook his head. "f.u.c.k that guy, Mike. He was stealing from us. That alone should mean that he dies. And the fact that he had the gall to try to pull a weapon on one of my people? I would have shot him myself. I'm glad you made the decision you made, because otherwise you might have been hurt. You don't know that motherf.u.c.ker from Adam. You don't know what kind of screws are loose in his brain. You played it safe, and that's the right thing to do."

Mike nodded. "Okay."

Torri looked down at Harper. She mouthed the words, "Thank you."