When the flames had died down enough that Will wasn't afraid of it spreading, he led us away from the pyre and took us toward the dead men's truck. It had been such a strange and overwhelming day, first at the college with all its revelations, and then with the terrible violence wrought by those men against Will's friends, and the deadly response of Will and Lucy. I remembered the very kind and intelligent-looking girl, and I looked over at Lucy, wondering again how such beautiful and graceful creatures were always surrounded with pain and ugliness. It never seemed right.

    As we walked over to the truck, Will looked to Lucy. "Are you okay? I didn't mean to get you into all this. But I'm glad you were there to help with Zoey-that's the name of the girl you met. But, well, I don't want to be mean or ungrateful, but I have to ask: are you still having that feeling where you need to eat people? I mean, that was a little hard for someone like me to watch and not get nervous."

    Lucy looked embarrassed and shook her head. I knew what Will meant, but I also knew that he and the other men had been the ones who had started the killing, not poor Lucy. She just had been a little overwhelmed and had lost control.

    "All right. You know I trust you. And I need your help."

    Will inspected the contents of the men's dump truck. The back was full of miscellaneous practical things-tools, chains, ropes, rolls of tape, tarpaulins, extra cans of fuel. Near the back of the truck bed, Will gathered the ropes and chains and some of the rolls of thick, grey tape. "I'm not exactly sure how this is going to work," he said to us, "but we should have some plan before we get there. The truck will act like a zombie magnet. Things that make mechanical sounds always do. I'll lead them away from the hole in the fence and we'll try to restrain them. Depending on how many there are, I might need you to help. Are you up to it? I won't hurt them if I can help it. You know that."

    We agreed immediately.

    By the time we got near the huge gap in the fence, several of the people who can't talk had walked through and were now wandering into the fields. As Will had predicted, the people heard the truck and tottered towards us. Will drove through the gap in the fence and stopped the truck next to the base of a huge, metal tower, the kind that holds the wires that used to carry electricity.

    Will climbed out of the truck as we got down from the back. "All right. Let's move," Will said. "If more show up and we get in trouble, I can always climb up the electrical tower, but for now you guys go to the back of the truck."

    Lucy and I shuffled toward the rear of the vehicle as Will climbed up into the bed of the dump truck. He made his way over the various things there till he was near the back, where we were. The other people were approaching, moaning with increasing volume and what seemed like excitement. Will handed some of the ropes and chains down to us, then tossed more of them, along with the rolls of tape, farther away from the truck.

    "They'll head for me. It'll be hard for them to climb up, so you should be able to yank them off pretty easily. I don't think they'll understand you as a threat or know how to respond to someone who's the same as they are, pulling on them. Drag them away from the truck and either tie them up, or at least tie them to the base of the tower. Work together. I only count six of them, so it shouldn't be too hard."

    The first man had approached us and began clawing the side of the truck. He didn't seem as emaciated as most of us. His jeans were a faded blue and his shirt was reduced to tatters. His shoes were completely gone. He seemed almost unaware of me and Lucy, even as Lucy slipped a chain around his waist. She passed it over his shoulder and back down, then she and I pulled on it. Rather than turn and attack us or try to untangle himself, he kept trying to pull towards the truck; he couldn't get much traction in the grass, so it was fairly easy for us to move him. We got him to the base of the electrical tower and secured the chain to it with a padlock that was hanging on the chain.

    A man, a woman, and a child were now grabbing and groping at the side of the truck. The child would be the easiest to deal with, but the woman seemed more dexterous and she had already climbed partway up the side, standing on the left rear tire. I tied a thick rope around her ankle and pulled her foot out from under her. Will was struggling with her as well, and finally her other foot slipped and she fell to the ground. I held her down and Lucy tied her up.

    The man was less coordinated than the woman had been, but definitely more aggressive and stronger. He shook me off several times as I tried to get a rope around him, then finally he turned his attention from the truck and threw me down. With a snarl, Lucy grabbed his right arm. It never ceased to amaze me, how savage she could be. I scrambled to my feet and got a hold of his left arm. It was a struggle, but together Lucy and I wrestled him over and got his hands behind him so she could tie him to the tower. The grey tape worked better for this than the ropes or chains, I noticed.

    By now the last two people had arrived at the truck. One was another child, and the other was a man who, like the woman, had climbed up on top of the truck's tire. Will punched him with his gauntleted fist, but couldn't quite get him to fall. Finally Will stepped back, picked up a shovel, and hit him in the face with it. He could easily have killed the man, but he just smacked him in the face with the flat of the shovel-not gently, but definitely not hard enough to kill. The man fell back and Lucy and I dragged him away much more easily than the previous one. The two children were small enough that we could each carry one over to the tower and secure them.

    When we finished, Will climbed down from the truck. I hadn't liked doing any of it, especially with the children. It just didn't seem right to fight with them when they couldn't understand that what they were doing was wrong, or understand we were only trying to keep them from hurting others. But seeing how desperately they all struggled in their attempts to get at Will, I didn't see any other way. I remembered the day Milton explained to me why we should be locked up; he had made it seem so much more just, as well as easier for me to accept. Since I couldn't give such an explanation to these people, I could only feel glad that it was over with as quickly as it was, and that at least it had gone better than the grotesque violence back at the house with the men. These people, even though we couldn't communicate with them, didn't seem as bad as that; the other men, even though they could communicate and reason, had been much more intent on hurting others more cruelly, with lingering pain and humiliation.

    One woman we had bound, closer to the truck, never stopped looking at Will and moving her mouth, growling and snarling with a low, simmering ferocity. And the more savage she was, the more I had to fight back an urge to kick her in the face, just to make her stop behaving so bestially. Both her behavior and my reaction were embarrassing, and I just wanted it to end. I was again confused about what we were, or what exactly we were meant to do here.

    Will watched the woman too, and I think he sensed my confusion. "It's okay, Truman. We didn't cause this. We didn't make things the way they are. Well, I mean, maybe we did, like the whole human race is responsible, but not just you and me, and not her. We try to stop people from hurting each other. And we try not to hurt people. But sometimes people still get hurt. I can tell you don't like that. And, well, that's a good thing, when doing something even a little bit wrong still bothers you. But not everyone feels bothered by it. Not these people here, and not those guys back there at the cabin. That's just the way it is. I guess it's the way it will always be. Now come over here and help me."

    I calmed somewhat and nodded to Will. He and I picked up the woman and put her with the others, then Will sat on the ground in the shadow of the truck, hiding from the people so they would calm down a little. He looked out over the fields, watching for the approach of anyone else. Lucy and I sat a little back, facing the other way, so we could keep an eye on the ones we had tied up, and also look for more in that direction. None appeared.

    It was getting late. I didn't know about Lucy and Will, but I felt exhausted. I just wanted to sit and rest, but I sensed there would be more to do, what with the new threat to Will's community.

    As the sun went down, Will looked to us. "You two go over into those trees there, farther away from the fence. The other people from our city should be here soon. I'll tell them what happened, and I'll join you as soon as I can. Be careful. Don't go too far." It was always nice, how he expressed concern for us. Lucy and I walked off and sat among some scrubby little trees, maybe a hundred feet from where Will and the truck were.

    After it had just gotten dark, headlights approached. The moon was up and bright enough that I could see a little of what was going on. There were a lot of people and several vehicles. One tall man and another man spoke with Will before he left them and trotted through the grass to where we were. It took him a second to find us, but then the three of us started walking through the trees, away from the people.

    When we had gone a little ways, Will said, "Those people will keep an eye on the fence until they can fix it in the morning. They'll take the zombies to one of the holding areas then too. I told them I'd scout around out here, see where those guys came from. I need to keep moving, so can you guys stay with me?"

    We nodded.

    "All right. It's not really safe for me out here at night, and I can't really follow the tracks anyway. So let's get back on the road. I saw a billboard there when we came out here earlier. I'll climb that and we can all have a rest."

    The billboard-or what was left of it-stood a little ways away from the fence. The pole and the frame that had held the sign were still there. The sign itself was long gone, of course. Lucy and I sat at the base of the sign.

    "Thanks, you two," Will said. "I don't know if I could've saved Zoey if you weren't there. And I want you to know that it's true what I said to her: I think it's okay you killed that guy. Not just okay, in fact, it was a good thing, a brave thing."

    Will took a step away from us and lit one of his cigarettes. I could see the end glow against the night. He exhaled and talked more quietly. "The eating part isn't so easy to get over, but I still think you're a good person and you should be treated with respect. I mean, I know all of us are taught to respect you, but now that I've met you two, I don't know if locking you up is always the right way. If you're still members of our community, you should do things to help out, like you did today. I'm sorry you had to see all that. It was ugly, and you two are nice and shouldn't have to see things like that. I wish more people were nice like you."

    He finished his cigarette and crushed it out on the ground. "Now I'm going to go up there, tie myself down, and try to get a little sleep. I hope you two can rest a little too. I guess you don't sleep or get tired exactly like we do, but you look tired and you did a lot today."

    Lucy and I both made our little affirmative wheezing sound. Will leaped and caught the bottom of a ladder that led up to a narrow platform under where the billboard used to be. He pulled himself up and in a second he was above us, lying down and going to sleep.

    Lucy and I leaned against each other, quiet and calm for the first time that day. The moon had risen higher, casting a lovely, softening glow on the fields. As with speaking or even bleeding, I envied Will's ability to sleep. For as soothing and beautiful as the moonlight on those fields was, I would have much preferred to just stop remembering and thinking about all the terrible things I'd seen that day, to have just a few hours of release. Considering all the things-many of them beautiful and good, I'm sure-that I had somehow been forced to forget, it hardly seemed fair that a whole new set of horrors had been shoved into my memory and could not be forced out or even softened.

    The moon set, the stars wheeled, and finally the horizon lightened to purple, then red, then orange. The sun warmed me and I felt slightly better after the previous day's events and the night's cold and damp. I did not know that equally important and terrible events would take place that day, even if it began as another beautiful, summer morning.