Chapter One

Ambush

The night he met the cannibals, Dez made the mistake of leaving his hiding place too early. Later on, he’d attribute it to his eagerness, his maddening desire to rectify his mistake, to for once save someone he loved rather than failing them. But as he crept through the shadow-laden forest, he knew it was all wrong, knew his rashness would cost him.

But Dez kept moving. The clearing lay ahead, though from his vantage point the only suggestion of a clearing was a darkness less oppressive than the one through which he stepped. He hadn’t glimpsed another soul in three days, which was a blessing. Seeing anyone was invariably bad. Particularly in a benighted stretch of forest like this.

The fine hair on his forearms prickled. Dez halted on the trail, one bootheel tilted askew by a jutting root.

He looked down, discovered it wasn’t a root at all, was rather the arm of a corpse.

Dez frowned.

Finding a dead body wasn’t uncommon – the creatures who ruled the world now didn’t scruple about leaving their victims exposed to the elements. But it was still a nasty jolt to find himself standing on a dead man’s forearm. The semidarkness and the advanced state of decomposition made it impossible to discern the man’s age, but the flies had mostly abandoned the corpse, and the putrid odor Dez detected was a faint one. The black eye sockets gaped up at him in accusation.

Dez swallowed, his senses groping outward through the shadowy glade. The only sounds he discerned, other than his ragged breathing, were the chitter of a small animal, and from somewhere above, an infuriating strain of birdsong, one so repetitive he suspected the bird was tormenting him.

Dez tightened, every muscle of his frame thrumming. Although cannibals were among the fiercest predators in this twisted new world, they were also, paradoxically, among the quietest. Only vampires moved with more stealth, the bloodthirsty beasts as noiseless as puffs of smoke.

No, he told himself. Don’t think of them. You’ve survived this long by remaining in the moment, not by imagining a gruesome death.

His ankle ached. To relieve the pain, he lifted his foot off the corpse’s arm and planted it on level ground. As he did, the pebbles underfoot let loose with an audible crunch.

He froze, teeth bared. As happened so often, the voice in his head sounded like his father’s: Get moving, Dad’s voice urged. If they are hunting you, you won’t do a damned bit of good playing freeze tag in the wilderness.

Yeah? Dez shot back. You’re as dead as the guy I just stepped on, Dad, so forgive me if I ignore your advice.

Dez’s throat tingled; he’d have to cough soon. Careful not to let the stiff fabric of his shirtsleeve rasp over the handle of the holstered Ruger, he pressed a fist to his lips and coughed as soundlessly as he could.

But rather than assuaging the tingle in his throat, the act of coughing only inflamed the tissue there, and for perhaps the millionth time Dez marveled at how many things he’d taken for granted before the Four Winds. Two years ago, you got sick, you popped a few pills, slurped some chicken soup, and cozied up with a good novel.

Now a cough could kill you. Not by the infirmity that caused it – though he’d seen people die of ailments that would have, before the world devolved, been easily treated – but because it revealed your whereabouts to predators.

Behind him, perhaps thirty yards back, there came the whooshing of a branch being thrust aside.

They’ve found you wherever you’ve tried to hide, Dez. They’ve smoked you out of every hole.

Footsteps, crunching without stealth on the trail behind him.

Dez bolted.

As his legs strode out, his muscles pumping, he scoured the forest for a hiding place. Dez veered around a bend in the trail, the saplings that framed the path crowding nearer. He thought he’d been shrewd starting the day’s trek before dawn, but now he realized his error, leaving his place of concealment too soon. Exposing himself to peril.

He hoped it wouldn’t get him killed.

Dez hurdled a downed sycamore. As he ran he tuned his ears to what stalked him, but no matter how he tried to filter out the noise of his own flight, he still found it impossible to detect anything other than the slap of his boots on the soil and the steamshovel chuff of his own breath.

Dez pounded down a decline, the machete handle banging against his hip. He cast a glance behind him, noticed the woods were devoid of movement. Had his pursuer given up?

He couldn’t risk it. Ahead, the trail opened wider. He could enter the clearing, turn and face his pursuer. Either that or dart into the woods, where a sinkhole or a root could snap his ankle and effectively end his life.

Dez emerged into the clearing and slowed.

The forest floor was a mélange of moist leaves, humus, and darkly glistening stones. The clearing was oblong, maybe a thousand square feet. But despite the openness of the space, very little predawn light shone through the overarching boughs.

He turned slowly as he scanned the forest’s edge. He could no longer hear anything pursuing him, but that didn’t mean he was safe. Pausing here could be suicide.

But he didn’t think so. He’d learned long ago to trust his gut, and his gut told him there was something else watching him now.

But not what had been chasing him moments earlier.

Dez’s breathing slowed. There was someone watching him. Someone….

He whirled and spotted a man huddled against a yew tree.

Like the green tangle of the tree itself, the man looked unkempt. His pale hair hung in greasy ribbons, curtaining a face mad with fear, the eyes staring moons, the whiskered jowls aquiver. As Dez’s eyes adjusted to the distance, which was perhaps thirty feet, he discerned the deep creases in the man’s forehead, the spray of crow’s feet bracketing the light eyes. A tick over fifty, Dez judged, but the past two years of hardship had added a decade to the grizzled countenance.

The man wore a denim jacket and what looked like breeches for pants, the dark fabric supported by a frayed hemp rope. He looked dangerous, not because of what he could do to Dez, but what his terror could draw to this clearing. Whatever had been hunting Dez seemed to have lost interest, at least for the moment, and Dez didn’t care to invite it back.

Dez took a step forward, and immediately the man began shaking his head so vigorously that his greasy hair whipped the bark of the yew trunk. Dez brought an index finger to his lips to shut the frightened bastard up, but the gesture appeared not to register. The man now raised his palms in a warding-off gesture, as if Dez were anything but a Latent, one of the few nonthreatening creatures left in this godforsaken world.

Dez inched closer and the gaunt man suddenly spoke. “Keep away! I’ve got a gun!”

Dez grimaced at the man’s reedy voice, which was teeth-chatteringly loud. “Easy,” Dez said, a palm out. “There’s no need to—”

“Another step and I’ll fire!” the man yelled.

It was a bluff, and a transparent one at that. If the man were about to shoot him, he’d at the very least have dropped a hand to the butt of a gun, or more likely, drawn his weapon and leveled it at Dez. But this man no more carried a gun than Dez owned a posh mansion with a harem of supermodels.

Dez halted, knowing the fool wouldn’t curb his shrill threats until every creature within a two-mile radius had converged on the clearing.

“I won’t come any closer,” Dez said. “But you need to tell me something.”

“Don’t need to tell you shit,” the man shouted. “You need to move on before you mess up everything!”

Another voice spoke from the shadows. “You one of them?”

The gaunt man jerked his head toward the speaker and growled, “Let me handle it. We don’t need this cocksucker drawing attention, do we? Ain’t I taken care of you so far?”

“Except for food, you have,” another voice said, this one younger-sounding.

The gaunt man’s face scrunched in irritation. “I told you we’d have it soon. Just a mile from here’s a peach grove with a few that ain’t fallen.”

“You said that three miles ago,” the older speaker said.

The gaunt man massaged his stubbly jaw. “Okay, I miscounted. But we gotta have solidarity. We can’t be no group if you guys are gonna question every little thing.”

One of the speakers moved into the bluish light and stood a couple feet from the gaunt man. He was of Asian descent, roughly the same height, and though he was thin, he looked a good deal healthier and ten years younger. Fortyish, right about Dez’s age.

“We haven’t questioned anything,” the new man said. “That’s the problem. How can we keep trusting you when you—”

“Trustin’ me?” the gaunt man demanded. “Ain’t we been together every waking hour? Ain’t I saved you from those maneaters?”

“So you claim,” the younger voice said. Dez made out a third form in the shade of the yew tree. The younger man looked like the son of the Asian man and just about college age, if colleges still existed.

The gaunt man agitated a hand at the boy. “Don’t you go pipin’ up. You been bellyachin’ the better part of the night.”

“Because his belly is aching,” the father said. “He’s not had a bite to eat since leaving the shelter.”

“Hole in the ground, you mean,” the gaunt man said. “And I bet he hadn’t eaten more than a rotten ear of corn in the days before I found you.”

The father puffed out his chest a little in a combination of pride and guilt that was difficult to behold. It reminded Dez too much of his own dad.

“We were doing okay,” the father said. “We certainly weren’t exposed like we are now.”

Dez cleared his throat audibly.

All three turned and regarded him.

“Have any of you heard of the Four Winds Bar?” Dez asked.

Something cunning crept into the gaunt man’s face. “Maybe I’ve heard of such a place. But I can’t for the life of me imagine why anyone with half a brain would want to go there.”

The father emerged from the thicket. “We know of it.”

“The Four Winds is a death trap,” the boy said.

The father hesitated, then explained, “I’m Rikichi. My students at Purdue called me Professor Rik. This is my son, Kenta.”

Dez remembered the face of his own son, and though he attempted to bury the image before the anguish could take hold, Will’s features clarified. His blue eyes. His dark blond hair. His subtle chin dimple, not as pronounced as Dez’s, but there nevertheless. Dez remembered Will’s guileless expression, and Dez’s heart ached. The boy was only four when the bombs flew; he would be six today if he were still alive.

If he were still alive.

The gaunt man squinted at Dez. “No reason to talk to this asshole. If he ain’t a maneater, he could be somethin’ worse.”

“We don’t know that,” Rikichi said.

“Don’t know anything,” the gaunt man countered, “which is why I say we keep moving.”

“How far is it?” Dez asked Rikichi.

An infinitesimal shrug. “Forty, fifty miles.”

Something deep in Dez’s gut began to flutter, but he kept the excitement out of his face. Before the missiles flew, he had no poker face at all, couldn’t even pull off a harmless prank without giving it away. But after the world ended, out here in this hellish new reality, you learned.

You learned or you died.

The gaunt man glanced from face to face, and then, realizing he was outvoted, heaved a resigned sigh. “I suppose I’ve been too rough on the newcomer.” A curt nod at Dez. “There’s no reason to think you’re a monster. Least…not yet.”

Dez glanced at the young man. “How old are you, Kenta? Twenty?”

“He’s eighteen this December,” Rikichi answered, with more than a touch of pride.

Dez felt a moment’s affection for Rikichi, then brushed it away. Emotions like that had no use anymore, especially for people he’d just met. For all Dez knew these three were conspiring to kill him.

Perhaps the suspicion showed on his face because Rikichi said, “We aren’t dangerous.” A gesture toward the boy. “We’re not that way. But…” He cleared his throat, the words obviously costing him an effort. “…we are hungry. Do you know how to use that?”

It took Dez a moment to realize that Rikichi was eyeing the crossbow strapped to Dez’s back. But rather than answering, Dez surveyed Rikichi’s face, then Kenta’s.

Rikichi frowned, an alertness dawning. “What’s wrong?”

“Watch him, Dad,” Kenta said.

The gaunt man nodded vigorously, wiped his mouth. “Told you two. Told you we couldn’t trust him.” He jabbed a finger at Dez. “Them black eyebrows, I seen ’em on werewolves before. One time before we got overrun, a guy in our group was shitbrained enough to let one in.” His face twisted bitterly. “Goddamned beast tore up a dozen people. Shouldn’t a ever let him in, but someone did. Just cuz he was pretty like this one.”

Dez laughed softly. It had been a long time since anyone had called him handsome, much less pretty.

“Can you tell us about yourself?” Rikichi asked.

Dez said, “Your face is unmarred. Your son’s too. And you’re paler than most survivors.”

The gaunt man leveled a finger at Dez. “That’s why I say we can’t trust ’im! Look at how dark that skin is. He’s been in the sun all that time. The only way he could survive is if he’s a monster.”

Dez repressed a smile. “You’re tanner than I am.”

The gaunt man jolted, an astonished look widening his eyes. “I ain’t tan. I’m….” A glance at Rikichi, a lick of his cracked lips. “My mom was part Native American.”

“Which tribe?” Kenta asked.

The gaunt man’s mouth opened, shut. “How the fuck should I know? It’s not like we lived on a reservation.”

“Your name is French,” Rikichi said to the gaunt man.

“My father’s side,” the gaunt man explained. “Gentry was one of the most respected names in the county before….”

There was no need for him to finish. In the dour silence that followed, Dez became aware of a new stirring in the forest, one that made the skin on the nape of his neck tighten.

But Rikichi seemed not to notice. He approached Dez. “We need food. We—” He made a pained face. “The reason we’re so pale is that we’ve been belowground. Until recently.”

Dez said, “Overrun?”

Kenta grunted mirthlessly. “Burned out’s more like it.”

“Someone dropped a Molotov cocktail into our shelter,” Rikichi said. “How long they knew we were there, I have no idea. It was the perfect place of concealment.”

“It must’ve been,” Dez said, “to last so long.”

“Not good enough,” Rikichi said. “Since then we’ve been hiding in abandoned houses, barns. We even slept in a cave one night.”

“Have you considered going back to your shelter?”

Rikichi’s face grew troubled. “If we’d gotten the guys who did it, sure. I think they were Latents, like us. I—”

“Dad killed one of them,” Kenta interrupted. “The other three ran away.”

Rikichi glanced at his son, some new tension arising between them. “They would’ve returned though. Maybe in greater numbers.”

“You don’t know that,” Kenta said.

“No,” the father agreed. “I don’t. So I made the best decision I could make.” He turned to Dez. “And we’re alive. That’s what matters.”

The gaunt man – Gentry, Dez remembered – said, “You didn’t have no life, hidin’ in the ground like worms.”

Rikichi broke into a wan smile. “We had plenty of time to hone our conversation skills.”

Kenta smiled too – the spitting image of his dad. “And I got to kick your butt at cards.”

“Not every time,” Rikichi said, his grin widening.

“Sitting ducks,” Gentry said. “That’s all you were.”

“Dad, why are we trusting Gentry?” Kenta asked. “I’m telling you, the only way to stay alive is to hide—”

“We’ve hidden enough,” Rikichi overrode him. “We can’t spend our lives cowering in holes. If there’s any chance of rebuilding the world, it’s got to start with people like us—”

“Dad—”

“—doing more than hiding.”

“But this old bastard is—”

“Enough, Kenta.”

“He’s not—”

“Enough,” Rikichi snapped.

Kenta compressed his lips, his nostrils flaring, but he didn’t fire back.

Gentry shambled toward Dez. “We’ve wasted enough time jawing with you. It’ll be daylight soon, and we need to find that peach grove. It’s time for—”

It all happened in an instant. Gentry whirled, Kenta let out a cry of pain, Rikichi screamed, and Dez felt a hard-boned arm cinch around his throat. Something cold was shoved against his left temple.

“You fight,” a voice said into Dez’s ear, “and I pull the trigger.”