beating his skull against the inside of the door.
“It has something to do with their head,” Trina murmured.
Everyone looked at her. She’d just voiced something obvious, but vital.
“It definitely had something to do with their head,” Mark chimed in. “They all had massive pain. And loss of sanity. Darnell was hallucinating-plain crazy. And then Misty. And the Toad…”
Trina posed a question. “Maybe they shot people with different things-how do we know it all started the same?”
Mark shook his head. “I went through the boxes on the Berg,” he said. “They all seemed to have the same identification number.”
Alec stood up. “Well, if it is mutating and if any of us have caught it, let’s hope it gives us a week or two before we lose our wits. Come on. Let’s get moving.”
“Nice,” Trina muttered as she got to her feet.
A few minutes later, they were on the march again.
Sometime in the middle of the afternoon they came within sight of another settlement. It was off the path Alec had scrawled on his makeshift map, but Mark spotted several wooden structures through the trees, big ones. His heart lifted at the idea of seeing large groups of people again.
“Should we go over there?” Lana asked.
Alec seemed to be weighing the pros and cons before he answered. “Hmm. I don’t know. I’m eager to keep moving and follow our map. We don’t know anything about these people.”
“But maybe we should,” Mark argued. “They might actually know something about the bunker, headquarters, whatever we’re calling the place the Berg came from.”
Alec looked at him, obviously considering all their options.
“I think we should check it out,” Trina said. “If nothing else, we can warn them about what’s happened to us.”
“Okay,” Alec relented. “One hour.”
The smell hit them when the wind shifted, just as they were approaching the first buildings, small huts made of logs with thatched roofs.
It was the same smell that had assaulted Mark and Alec when they’d approached their own village after chasing down the Berg and marching back. The smell of rotting flesh.
“Whoa!” Alec called out. “That’s it. We’re turning around right now.”
Even as he said it, it became clear where the stench was coming from. Farther down the path several bodies had been stacked on top of each other. Then a figure appeared. A little girl was walking toward them from the direction of the dead. She must have been five or six years old, with matted dark hair and filthy clothes.
“Guys,” Mark said. When the others looked at him, he nodded toward the approaching girl. She stopped about twenty feet from them. Her face was dirty and her expression sad, and she didn’t say anything. Just looked at them with hollow eyes. The stench of rot hung in the air.
“Hey there,” Trina called out. “Are you okay, sweetie? Where are your parents? Where are the others from your village? Are they…” She didn’t need to finish-the stack of bodies spoke for itself.
The girl answered in a quiet voice and pointed out toward the woods behind Mark and the others.
“They all ran into the forest. They all ran away.”
CHAPTER 18
Mark didn’t know what it was about her words that made him shiver, but they did, and he couldn’t fight the urge to look over his shoulder toward where she was staring. There was nothing back there but the trees and the brush and the sunlight dappling the ground.
He turned to face the girl again. Trina walked toward her, which of course made Alec protest.
“You can’t do this,” he said, but even his gravelly rebuke didn’t have any strength. It was one thing to leave adults behind, people who were able to fend for themselves. Maybe it was even one thing to put a teenager-almost an adult-out of his or her misery, like Alec had done to the Toad. But this was a child, and that made everything different. “At least try not to touch her, for the sake of all of us.”
The girl flinched and took a few steps back when Trina got close to her.
“It’s okay,” Trina said, stopping. She got down on one knee. “We’re friendly, I promise. We came from a village just like yours, where they had lots of kids. Do you have friends here?”
The girl nodded, then seemed to remember something. She shook her head sadly.
“They’re gone now?”
A nod.
Trina looked back at Mark, heartbreak in her eyes, then returned her attention to the girl.
“What’s your name?” Trina asked. “Mine is Trina. Can you tell me yours?”
After a long pause, the girl said, “Deedee.”
“Deedee, huh? I love that name. It’s really cute.”
“My brother’s name is Ricky.”
It seemed such a childlike thing to say, and for some reason it brought memories of Madison slamming to the forefront of Mark’s thoughts. His heart ached. He wished this girl were his little sister. And as always, he tried his hardest to keep his mind from wandering down the darkest road of all. Imagining what might’ve happened to her when the sun flares struck.
“Where is Ricky?” Trina asked.
Deedee shrugged. “I don’t know. He went with the others. Into the forest.”
“With your mom and your dad?”
The girl shook her head. “No. They got hit by the arrows from the sky. Both of them. They died real nasty.” Tears welled up until they spilled over and washed down her dirty cheeks.
“I’m so sorry to hear that, sweetheart,” Trina said, her voice full of the deepest sincerity. Mark was sure he’d never liked her as much as he did right then. “Some of our friends were… hurt by the same people. Nasty, like you said. I’m so, so sorry.”
Deedee was crying but also rocking back and forth on her heels, something that again reminded Mark of Madison. “It’s okay,” she said, so sweetly that Mark didn’t know how much more of this he could take. “I know it wasn’t your fault. It was the bad men’s fault. The ones who wear the funny green suits.”
Mark pictured that day, remembered looking up at the same people on the Berg. Or friends of the same people. Who knew how many Bergs were out there, flying around with dart guns full of who knew what. Why, though? Why?
Trina kept digging, as tenderly as she could, for more information. “Why did the others leave? Why didn’t you go with them?”
Deedee held up her right arm, the hand balled into a fist. She pulled up her ratty sleeve to reveal a circular wound near her shoulder, scabbed over but looking poorly cared for. She didn’t say anything, just held the arm straight out for everyone to inspect.
Mark took in a quick breath. “Looks like she was shot by a dart!”
“I’m sorry about your owie,” Trina said, shooting a glare at Mark. “But… do you know why they left? Where they went? Why didn’t you go with them?”
The girl jabbed her arm out again, pointing at the wound. Mark exchanged a look with Alec and Lana, sure that they understood the deep significance as much as he did. Why was this girl okay if she’d been shot?
“I really am sorry they hurt you,” Trina said. “Looks like you’re one lucky girl. Do you not want to answer any more questions? It’s okay if you don’t.”
Deedee groaned in frustration and pointed at her wound once again. “This is why! This is why they left me here! They’re bad, like the green men.”
“I’m really sorry, sweetie.”
Mark couldn’t hold it in anymore. “I’ll tell you what happened. They probably thought she was sick from the dart and left without her.” The words sounded wrong, though. How could anyone actually do that? To a little kid?
