loss and grief. No one had escaped the horror that had swept over the world like wildfire, and yet they continued on. Just like him, he guessed, they were too stubborn to die. Maybe it was just the survival instinct, or maybe it was some last spark of hope that kept them going.
Warren had lost everything he’d ever cared about, and he would never find a new life for himself—he accepted that. He had been a solider before Hell rose up and spilled out over the earth, and he was still a soldier now. He had a job to do, and he was damn well determined to keep these folks alive for a shot at the future.
Inside the camp, families were eating breakfast together. People were trading goods and services. Gerald and his crew were working on one of the older trucks in an attempt to keep it viable. Not a single person appeared to have been bothered by Jenkins’s shots.
“Boss?” Scott asked.
Warren tore himself from his thoughts. “What?”
“Are we moving out today?”
Warren forced a smile, trying to make a joke of his answer. “Don’t know. I would guess so. We’ve been here too long already. We stay much longer and the rats may try to make a go for it.”
Scott laughed.
Warren shook his head, wishing he were joking, then made his way toward camp.
Sitting in the command APC, Mike took a sip of the instant coffee in his cup, essentially swill warmed by one of the campfires. People these days loved fires. He imagined they thought the flames might keep the rats away— they just didn’t or couldn’t understand how intelligent the pests had become.
No one knew how or why it happened. In the beginning, there were only a few scattered reports of rats attacking people, lost in the whirlwind of disasters on the nightly news. It wasn’t until a massive swarm of rats consumed every tenant living in a large apartment building in New York that people started to notice. Even then, the changes in the rat species were far overshadowed by the walking dead. As the corpses swept across the nation, eating everyone in their path, the authorities told people either to stay in their homes and wait for help or travel to one of the safe houses set up by FEMA and their ilk; the general population followed the advice and unwittingly gift-wrapped themselves for the rats. Rising up from the cellars and basements, or in some cases just pouring through windows, the rats devoured everyone they found. Humanity had lost the war before it ever began.
It wasn’t at all like the movies. If you were bitten by a dead person, you didn’t contract some virus or disease and become one of them. The dead were merely the tools of their rodent masters, foot soldiers to a greater power. However, if a rat bit you, you did rise again when you died. The disease gestated until the death of its host, after which it rewired the host’s brain to carry out the will of the rats. Scientists suspected it was some kind of evolutionary glitch, something new the rats secreted when they bit someone, something that acted like a virus but wasn’t. It made the dead into cattle for the rats, both a food supply and a mindless herd. The scientists theorized endlessly on the cause—at least until the demons showed up.
Mike shuddered as he thought about it and thanked God the demons were small in number, even now, five months after the world had crumbled into Hell.
Mike set down his coffee on the APC’s dashboard and started crunching the numbers in his head again. Any way he looked at it, they were pretty much screwed if they didn’t reach the base soon, and they would need to raid another town if they were going to keep going at all.
Mike turned and gazed out the passenger window to see Warren staring back at him. “How long have you been standing there?” Mike asked as he climbed out of the vehicle.
Warren showed him two rows of tobacco-stained teeth. “Long enough to see from the look on your face things are worse than I thought.”
“You’re too good at your job, Warren.”
“How’s that?”
“We have too many people and not nearly the food or fuel we need to keep moving. If it hadn’t been for you and your men, most of us would be dead by now.”
Warren grunted. “I could go shoot some people at random if you like.”
Mike chuckled, though a part of him wondered if Warren was serious. “No, really. We need fuel, Warren. Most of the vehicles are running on fumes.”
“You sure this place we’re headed to is worth all the trouble, Mike?”
“I’m sure. With a few modifications, the rats will never be able to get inside unless we let them in. This place is solid. I only hope the military isn’t waiting on us there. They may not be too friendly, but I can tell you, the place should be stockpiled with enough supplies to keep us alive and safe for years. It’ll give us time to figure out how to beat the little bastards once and for all.” After a short pause, he said, “But in order to get there, we’ll have to make another raid. It’s the only option.”
“We lost a hell of a lot of good men last time, boss.”
“I know.” Mike grabbed his map from the APC and rolled it out on the hood. He pointed out three hand- drawn circles. “I’ve been giving it a lot of thought during the four days we’ve been camped, and these, I think, are our safest targets.”
Warren studied the map. “Jericho is out. That place is overrun, you can bet on it. And Livingston… I wouldn’t want to take a team that far from the convoy.”
“Well then, I guess Greensburg is the target,” Mike conceded.
“Yep, but the convoy’s been here too long. We’ll have to risk moving as we hit it. Divide up what fuel is left so you guys can get on the road while my team is gone.” Warren placed a finger on the map. “I say we move the whole convoy here, somewhere closer to Greensburg but not too close, maybe around the Jones Creek area. I want to be able to hightail it back to you as quick as possible if there’s trouble on either end.”
“Okay. That’s settled. I’ll make the announcement and we should be able to make Jones Creek by nightfall if we hurry… But you should know there’s no room for failure in Greensburg. If you return without the fuel, it’s over.”
Warren nodded and went off to gather his team for the job.
Michelle sat up, pushing the sleeping bag off her. She clasped her hands and stretched them high above her head as her long blond hair spilled over her shoulders.
“Good morning, sleepy head,” Benji said. He handed her a bowl of oatmeal, which he had just taken off the fire. “Looks like we’re having your favorite again.”
Michelle made a disgusted face and reluctantly took the bowl. “It stopped being my favorite a long time ago. Any chance you have some eggs and bacon?”
“We might if you started sleeping around for it,” he joked. She was his sister, but he wasn’t blind to the fact that most men in the convoy would give almost anything to wake up beside her. Michelle wasn’t thin but she wasn’t chubby either, one of those biological marvels that filled out perfectly in all the right places. Her blond hair and blue eyes were an added bonus.
Unfortunately for the men of the convoy and Benji’s stomach, she was also a tomboy, if that term could be applied to someone slightly past twenty-five years old; she had fought more than her fair share of the dead, and had kept her brother on this side of the grave all by herself until they’d stumbled upon the convoy. But even then, she wasn’t content to just sit back. She’d joined Warren’s team of soldiers as fast as she could and began to train under Warren himself.
“Don’t mess with me this early in the morning, little brother, or I might have to beat the shit out of you,” she said.
Benji feigned shock. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Just because you’re gay doesn’t make you a lady, Benji, and the glasses aren’t going to save you either if
