Harper nodded once and turned away from them.

Julia stood against the side of the LMTV, one hand leaning on it, the other tucked into the shoulder strap of her medical bag. She regarded the concrete at her feet until Harper turned away from the Reagans. She raised her head. "Everyone's ready to roll."

Harper walked briskly to the pa.s.senger's side of the Humvee, and sat down inside. Gray climbed into the turret, but he paused before situating himself and looked down at Harper, motioning his head to the LMTV that sat abreast of them.

"Everything okay with Mike?" Gray asked.

"Yeah," Harper said. "Everything's fine."

Julia set her pack in the back, then climbed in and flipped the ignition switch. The Humvee took a few seconds, then squawked its long, annoying tone at her until she pressed the ignition b.u.t.ton and it rumbled to life.

"Listen," Harper said, loud enough for both her and Gray to hear. "Before everything went to s.h.i.t, Mack was telling me about some large horde of infected that they'd made contact with right about when they crossed the I-40 corridor. He couldn't give me a number, and didn't know whether they were coming from Virginia, or out of Greensboro or Raleigh area. He just said there were a lot of them, and they were coming south."

Julia tapped the steering wheel.

Gray rubbed his knees. "Okay."

"We're gonna kick out in front of the convoy," Harper said. "Keep about two miles between us and them. Scout out the way ahead. I don't want the convoy plunging right into the middle of a couple thousand infected."

"A couple thousand?" Julia nearly coughed.

Harper shrugged. "I don't know. Rough guesstimate."

She looked at him, her fingers now clutching the steering wheel. "Alright. I'm with you."

Harper picked up the radio mic and transmitted his instructions to the others. When his plan was acknowledged and understood, Julia popped the emergency brake and let the Humvee roll down the hill, putting distance between them and the convoy.

CHAPTER 13: DAYLIGHT.

His heart pounded. He was cold on one side of his body, sweating on the other. He opened his eyes, saw things he didn't understand, closed them again. He was someplace he didn't want to be. He was trapped. He needed to get free, but he didn't know how.

Lee's brain endlessly pestered him with dreams. Even as a child, it seemed he dreamt more often than others, and he very rarely enjoyed the black silence of an empty sleep. They'd always been unusually clear and vivid, but lately they were choppy and disconcerting. Now, he dreamed of a cold cement chamber and a door that sounded like a vault opening, and Colonel Reid standing in full dress uniform, extending a hand to him with a pleasant smile.

"Come back to the land of the living, Captain Harden," Colonel Reid said.

Lee stared up at him, like he'd just seen the eyes of G.o.d.

It had all been a nightmare! All the horrible death, and the pain, and the feeling of helplessness, hopelessness, walking forever on a jagged line between complete despair and gutting through. An indescribable relief flooded him, made him giddy, like he was suddenly weightless.

It was all over.

Finally, it was all over.

Then Colonel Reid kicked him in the legs. "I said get the f.u.c.k up, Hero."

Lee opened his eyes. Light poured in through the garage windows, illuminating the lifts with rotting, partially gutted cars still hanging on them. The cold. The stink of grease. The stink of himself. The pain all over his body. The aching fever squirming through him, making his muscles tremble, making his skin hot and sensitive to the touch, like all his clothes were made of burlap.

He looked up.

It wasn't Colonel Reid standing over him anymore. It was an angry looking female, one hand on her hip, bent at the waist, scowling at him like she was considering punching him in the gut next, if the kick in the legs didn't work.

Lee realized his heart was still pounding oddly fast.

What's going on? What's happening? Where the f.u.c.k am I?

He blinked rapidly, let out a quaky breath, tried to sit up a little straighter.

Something about a GPS...Eddie Ramirez...

"Yo, Sh.e.l.ley..." A young voice.

The woman standing in front of Lee turned her attention away from him. She was within arm's reach of him, and the b.u.t.t of her pistol stuck out of her waistband. He stared at it, feeling like the world moved in triple time and he was frozen in place, unable to command his body with the fluidity that he once had possessed.

Eddie Ramirez took...no...Eddie Ramirez f.u.c.king STOLE my GPS.

And like a pa.s.sword, the rest fell into place.

Eddie Ramirez shot you in the head and stole your GPS.

You need to get your GPS back.

You are currently being held captive. You are waiting for an opportunity-any opportunity-to escape, because time is running out for you. In 24 hours you'll be too sick to think straight. Eddie Ramirez is in the wind with your GPS, and when he's gone so is any hope you have of actually saving anybody, or anything.

You are looking for an opportunity-any opportunity.

The pistol b.u.t.t glared at him, only a quick lunge away.

Do or die time.

"Hey..."

Lee's eye shot to the right, where the voice had come from.

Standing there, the muzzle of his rifle pointed at Lee's face, was Kev. The big man shook his head slowly from side to side, his eyes rock hard and narrowed like he knew every thought that was going through Lee's head.

"I saw you f.u.c.kin' lookin' at that gun," Kev growled. "Sh.e.l.ley!"

She spun around.

Kev gave her a look of malice. "You wanna pay the f.u.c.k attention?"

She glanced rapidly between herself and Lee, then backed up a few paces. "What'd I do?"

"Motherf.u.c.ker was about to s.n.a.t.c.h your s.h.i.t," Kev spat. "Jesus Christ, woman."

This was bad. The last thing Lee wanted was for them to realize he was thinking about escape. Lee shook his head vehemently, though he knew a complete denial would only make him look guiltier. So he deflected. "I need medicine...I need antibiotics."

By now James, the wannabe tough-guy, had walked over, and Shumate and the Quiet Man watched as they gathered their gear around the smoldering fire. James gave him a look over with a critical eye as he approached.

"The f.u.c.k is this guy talking about?" he pointed a finger.

A rack of fever chills. .h.i.t him. As miserable as he felt, he had to admit that they came at the right time. "The head wound is getting infected. I need antibiotics."

Kev nudged him roughly with the toe of his boot. "Just keep your mouth shut." He knelt down so he was at eye-level with Lee, just out of arm's reach. "You do your f.u.c.king job out there, you keep control of that mutt," he eyed the dog that huddled against Lee's leg. "You and the dog prove useful, then maybe we find some antibiotics to keep you alive. But we ain't wastin' time on that s.h.i.t for someone we don't even know if we want to keep around. Understand?"

Now Shumate had walked over, fixing his pistol belt around his waist and adjusting his holster into a comfortable position. "What's he asking for?"

"Antibiotics," Sh.e.l.ley murmured. "He does look like s.h.i.t."

Shumate looked down at Lee, flanked by Sh.e.l.ley and James, while Kev still knelt down and stared threateningly at Lee, as though there would be nothing more pleasurable for him than to gut Lee where he sat. The first instinct for Lee, despite everything else bogging him down, was to stick his chin out and meet that threat head on. But he was trying to play a smarter game than that. A game where the stakes were much bigger than bragging rights on who was tougher.

The time would come when they would see who was tougher.

But for now, Lee avoided eye contact with Kev, chose instead to look intimidated and plaintively up at Shumate while he tried not to think about how deep in the s.h.i.t he was burying himself. Tried not to think about his chances. Tried not to run the numbers in his mind, because he knew they wouldn't be pretty.

Shumate looked amused. "Antibiotics, huh?" he nodded slowly. "Okay. We'll look for some while we're scavenging today." He gave Lee a friendly wink. "After all, you gotta take care of the things that keep you alive, right? And you're gonna keep us alive out there? Aren't you, Captain? Because us living means you living. Right?"

Lee looked at each of their faces. Sh.e.l.ley filled with suspicion and bitterness. James smiling like a buffoon. Shumate with his eyebrows raised up, as though waiting for an answer. Kev still fixated on Lee like a cat watching a mouse hole. And in the background, still slowly putting on his gear, the Quiet Man, whose expression remained enigmatic.

Lee nodded. "Yes. I'll keep you guys alive."

Sh.e.l.ley drove the van erratically, blasting through twists and turns and slowing down to a crawl in long straightaways. The occupants in the back jostled around, b.u.mping against each other and the blank side walls of the cargo area, and no one seemed to notice but Lee.

They'd allowed him out without the hood over his head, which was a step in the right direction. Optimism would have been too strong a word to describe what he felt, but he counted it a minor victory. Plus he had felt he had successfully steered the conversation away from the fact that he'd been about to s.n.a.t.c.h Sh.e.l.ley's pistol from her waistband before Kev called him out.

Now he sat sandwiched between James and the Quiet Man, his back to the driver's side wall, away from any doors. Deuce had tucked himself between Lee's legs, a surprising show of trust coming from such a skittish dog, but Lee supposed Deuce trusted him moreso than he trusted these strangers. They'd tied another cord around his original bindings, and then slip-knotted it around the dog's neck in a makeshift leash.

Up front and across from Lee, Shumate huddled between the driver's seat and pa.s.senger seat, directing Sh.e.l.ley where to go as he read from a map he had splayed out before him. And Kev sat with his shoulder to the side doors, still staring at Lee with violent intensity.

Lee used his time to think. He didn't know where they were going-Shumate was simply directing Sh.e.l.ley to go left or right, and not using street names to guide her. Based on the angle of the sun, Lee figured they headed predominately west. And if he were to go by last night's conversation, they were headed into some sort of urban area. He could only hope that they had the sense not to wander into a larger urban area, where the number of infected might be so large that no amount of early warning would save them.

He'd already run through possible scenarios, and decided on the most likely ones. If yesterday were any clue, they would have two people in the van. Sh.e.l.ley seemed to be the driver, and Shumate had been the one that waited with her yesterday, while the other three made the rounds, seeming to keep the van close by. He wasn't sure whether Shumate always stayed behind with Sh.e.l.ley, but he felt it might change on a daily basis, and believed that Shumate might not want to spend a lot of awkward time in the van, engaged in a staring contest with Lee.

So Lee discreetly a.s.sessed the others, breaking down body language, size, how well they appeared to handle themselves, and prioritizing them. Picking his "favorites," so to speak.

First was James. He was small, thin, and young. He was fidgety. He talked too much. He joked too much. He laughed too much. That was weakness on display. A sign of someone who was not confident in himself, or his abilities. The big boy talk was overcompensation, like a bird ruffling its feathers to make itself look bigger. The joking was a sign of nerves.

Lee put James at the top of his list.

Then there was Sh.e.l.ley. Much the same evaluation as James, but she seemed a little rougher around the edges. The only reason she scored worse than James was because she showed a willingness to inflict pain, and a willingness to receive it to get what she wanted-signs of sadism and sociopathy. That made her a little more dangerous in Lee's mind.

Next was the Quiet Man, whose name still remained a mystery to Lee. He was almost tied with Shumate, but the deciding factor had been that Lee knew something of Shumate, and very little of the Quiet Man. Lee knew that Shumate had survived the attack on Johnston Memorial Hospital, which meant he had some hard stuff in him after all. The Quiet Man seemed like he knew what he was doing, but perhaps simply knew that when you stayed quiet, people filled the silence with mystery and foreboding. He could have been a used car salesman, despite looking like someone that had done some criminal enforcing back in the day.

Last on the list was Kev. Kev was everything Lee didn't like about the others, but lacking any visible cracks of weakness. Kev was a mold of every wild-eyed spec-ops goon he'd ever met that decided to go down the mercenary road because the pay was better and the rules were looser. The kind of guy that enjoyed killing, but didn't get carried away by it. Always cautious, always suspiciously aware of everything, always ready to drop the hammer at the slightest provocation. Like a shark, gla.s.sy and languid when it's cruising the ocean, but you know that with two twitches it could be ripping you apart.

Lee did not like Kev one bit.

"Turn right," Shumate intoned, and the van took the corner in jarring fashion, pinning Lee's back against the wall, before straightening out with a chirp of tires.

Lee leaned forward just enough to see past James and Shumate and out the windshield, where he could see what once had been a sleepy town. Red brick buildings rose all around them, short and squat. Black lampposts that did little but collect trash blown about in the wind. Gutters with desiccated bodies in them.

"Sit back," Kev said quietly. "You don't need to see where we're going."

Lee sat back, focused on the dog between his knees, idly scratching his fingers behind the dog's ears while his mind raced and his stomach churned sickly. He was right about Kev. The guy was confident. But could Lee turn it into over-confidence? One of two things would happen by Lee cowering. Either Kev would relax and stop viewing Lee as a threat, or he would sense that something was up and become even more guarded.

"Slow up," Shumate mumbled, craning his neck to see their surroundings. He pointed out the window to the right. "Pull up to the curb there. Yeah. Right here."

Sh.e.l.ley guided the van right, braked slowly, then put it in park.

The van rumbled into a high idle then settled down after a minute.

Shumate turned around. He looked at Lee first, as though Lee had said something strange, then at the others. "Alright. Our guest and his dog will stay in the van. We'll open the doors so the mutt can get a good whiff of the air. Then we'll start working our way down the block." Shumate raised a single eyebrow. "I'm gonna go ahead and join you guys this time. Who wants to stay with Sh.e.l.ley and our new friend here?"

James raised his AK-47 partially out of his lap. "Yeah, I'll stay."

Shumate's fingers stroked his leather gunbelt. "Hmm..."

Lee stared down at Deuce, trying to look like he didn't give a s.h.i.t who they left in the van with him, but he couldn't help his pulse pounding like a man who has set a trap and watches his prey wander closer and closer to it. Of all the people in the van, James was the most likely to make a stupid mistake and open an opportunity for Lee to escape.

Leave me with James, Lee tried to will the situation into reality. Leave me with James. Everything will be fine. Just leave me with James.

Shumate grimaced. "Nah...I mean, no offense, James, but this guy..." he wagged a finger at Lee. "...this guy is a sneaky sonofab.i.t.c.h. Kev, why don't you sit in the van today? Keep an eye on our friend here."

The barest hint of a smirk broke across Kev's lips. "Sounds good to me."

It was everything Lee had in him to keep his eyes on Deuce, keep his fingers gently touching the fur, and to not react. After a moment that was just long enough that Lee felt he'd demonstrated how little he cared, he looked up at Shumate. He winced and let out a shaky breath.

"Man," he said in a sickly voice. "I'm burnin' up here. I'm not gonna be any good to you in a coma. Please..."

Shumate opened the van door. "Relax. We'll find you some medicine." He hopped out, looking around cautiously while James and the Quiet Man joined him on the curb. He put a hand on his pistol belt. "Now, whether or not I give you that medicine depends on how much help you are to me. So why don't you focus on that for now, okay?"

Shumate gestured to the back door of the van. "James, pop those doors. Get some nice air flow goin' for our dog."

James sauntered over, his rifle swinging lackadaisically in his hands. "What? You didn't trust me to sit with the dog guy?" He popped the back doors, gave Lee a dirty look and walked back around.

Shumate smiled. "I trust you. I just trust Kev more."

James nodded. "Nice. Thanks for that."