The sound was loud and sudden, like something angry being awakened. There were several pitches and tones, and it seemed to come from all over, down in the hole Dad and Mr. Caine had fallen into. I raised the 9mm and the flashlight until the beam found my dad. Grey, ghostly hands were grabbing at him.

    "Daddy!" Nothing in the cabin had given me such uncontrollable, unrestrained panic and terror. It was the only time I got close to losing it, and I've often thought since then how it was way too close for all of us. I shouldn't have done that, but there was no way not to, I think.

    You always hear how in those situations, it's as though things happen in slow motion. I don't really remember it that way, but it's possible, I guess. As I've said, memory is funny. I mostly remember, after my initial shriek, that things appeared so clear and precise, even though the room was still full of swirling dust that was making my eyes and throat burn. My dad and Mr. Caine were trying to stand up amidst the wreckage. Both were also trying to draw their weapons. But there were two hands on Dad's right arm, and because of his uneven footing in the debris, he was having trouble drawing his gun, or breaking away from the groping hands.

    I moved my beam slightly to the right and found the head that was guiding the two hands. Hairless, sexless, faded-it looked more like a ghost than a zombie. But there are no ghosts. There are only our monsters, and they're human, in their own way. They're not wisps that come through walls-they're completely solid and human. And when you shine a light in the eyes of someone who's been in a basement for twelve years, they have to falter for a second. No fear in those lifeless eyes, but for a moment, surprise and blindness.

    I squeezed the trigger. More grey, faded matter shot out the back of its head and it fell away from my dad. I felt none of the visceral, savage satisfaction I had gotten the previous day when I saw those evil men killed, but only the most intense relief.

    My dad and Mr. Caine freed both their weapons from their holsters. I swept my flashlight around to the right, where I'd shot the one zombie, and there didn't seem to be any more on that side. Dad and Mr. Caine pointed their flashlights to the left and opened fire. It was one long roar for several seconds. Then it stopped. No more moaning, just the small, animal pant of the living. Then a slight scraping sound, and a rasping.

    "You missed one," my dad said to Mr. Caine. He held up his gun. "I'm out."

    Mr. Caine trained his flashlight on a hand that was moving slightly, then slid the beam up and over to the head. There was one more shot, and everything was silent again.

    My dad slid another magazine into his gun. "You okay?" he asked Mr. Caine.

    "Yeah," Mr. Caine said, also reloading.

    "Haven't done that in a long time. Kind of lets you know you're alive, having to shoot the place up."

    Mr. Caine holstered his reloaded weapon. "Yeah, I know what you mean. But I think I could tolerate a more boring, less invigorating life, if it meant not having to go through that."

    Dad nodded. "Yeah." He looked up at me. "You okay?"

    I kept my own weapon out, pointed down. I could feel myself losing it again. "I don't know. Just get out of there."

    "Sure thing, kiddo," Dad said as he reached up. I holstered my gun so I could take his hand and help him out of the hole. He then helped Mr. Caine climb out.

    I threw my arms around my dad, letting myself lose control for just a second. "I thought for sure you were going to die," I sobbed into his chest. "I couldn't stand it."

    He ran his big, calloused hand over my head, and made those shushing noises people do when someone else is crying. I had made them the other night with Ms. Dresden. They seemed universal, and while not wholly adequate to the situation, they were usually enough to nudge the person back to normalcy and calm. "It's okay," he said between shushing.

    It only took me a second to regain control. Something inside me eased, the tension and pain fell below some threshold, and I knew I had cried the right amount and should stop now. I stepped back from my dad and shined my flashlight into the hole, running it across the tangle of limbs, then up the walls to where their brains were now glistening, lumpy stains. I brought it back down and let it settle on the one I had shot. It had been a man, and the impact had sent him crumpling to his side, almost in a fetal position.

    "They sat down there for twelve years," I said very softly. "How could anyone do that, just sit there? In the dark. I'd go crazy."

    "Anyone would," Mr. Caine offered, as both he and my dad rubbed my back and shoulders. "Maybe they did, too. We don't know."

    "To sit there, for twelve years, and then to just have your head blown off." I was biting my lower lip. It was an old nervous habit I'd mostly gotten rid of. "It doesn't make any sense. If they were just going to die anyway, why have them sit there, why not have them just die back when it first started?"

    My feelings were vague and hard to put into words, but I think my dad and Mr. Caine felt the unfairness and absurdity just as much as I did. Indeed, Mr. Caine was the main person who had taught me to have such a keen eye for those qualities in the world. "I know, Zoey," Mr. Caine said very quietly, almost in a whisper. "It was their special torment-their fate, I guess people would say. We don't know why. I'm fairly sure they didn't know why, either. Maybe it was better that they didn't know."

    "But there was a reason?"

    I wished I could see his eyes and his smile, but it was too dark and dusty in there. Mr. Caine's expression always made me feel more confident when he posed these questions in class, the way I was posing them that day. "I hope so, Zoey. No one can decide that for you. But I've always thought you knew much more about these things than other people do. And I don't know the reason for that, either. I just know it when I look at you."

    I nodded. I remembered what Milton had said on the night of my vows, how maybe it would be possible for me to have faith. I also remembered how before my vows, I had felt I was in the presence of something just as mysterious and powerful as it was familiar and trustworthy. I didn't feel that way now, but the memory gave me some confidence and comfort. I took my flashlight off the dead man. "I feel so sorry for them. But I had to save you."

    My dad hugged me again. "I know, honey. You did what you had to." It was funny, always doing what you have to. I wondered if people ever got to do just what they wanted to do.

    We started to move back out of the store. My dad steered me toward the glass compartment again. "I know it's not as nice now, but maybe we should get some of the stuff anyway," he said meekly. He was right-he had incredibly bad timing, but he was as practical and right as he always was. Rescuing something beautiful from this slaughterhouse and tomb was even more important and significant than it had been before. Not that we thought pretty dresses could make up for or offset the ugliness, but just that they might keep the brutality from overwhelming us completely.

    Oddly, I remembered a song my mom had sung to me when I was a baby: it said something about how you should "accentuate the positive," except some of the syllables were stretched out to fit the tune and it made them sound funny.

    Each of us took as many dresses as we could carry and loaded them in the back of the truck. They looked funny, draped over the dull metal poles and fencing. As Dad pulled down the truck door, a voice called out to us from the parking lot. "You three, lay down your weapons!"

    My dad instantly shoved me and Mr. Caine around to the right side of the truck, which was facing the building. Shots exploded around us, ricocheting off the pavement and tearing into the side of the truck.

    Mr. Caine drew his gun and stood by the back right wheel, while my dad pushed me to a crouch behind the front wheel, behind the protection of the engine block. If the shooters were using rifles, the thin metal skin of the rest of the truck wouldn't offer any real cover.

    My dad pressed against my shoulders as he leaned down and looked me in the eyes. "This is bad," he said quickly, evenly. He was scared, the way I had been for him back in the store. "People with guns are much worse than zombies. I love you, Zoey. You do whatever it takes to stay alive, you hear me?"

    I nodded. He let go of me and I drew my 9mm again. It was hard to tell if we were in worse danger now than we had been in the store, but since my dad was right next to me and not in a hole full of dead people, it certainly didn't seem as bad.

    My dad opened the door to the cab of the truck and leaned inside. I heard more shots as the windshield and the driver's side window exploded, but my dad emerged with the M16. It had a long, forty-round magazine in it, and another one taped to the first magazine. My dad closed the truck door and nodded slightly at me. There were no more shots for a few seconds.

    "Hey," my dad shouted, "didn't you have enough yesterday? Why do you want to mess with us again? And this time it's not just a woman and two girls. So why don't you all just back up and let us go about our business?"

    There was a long pause. Then a man shouted, "What are you talking about? We were attacked a couple days ago, and we just heard that we were attacked again this morning. You people need to throw your weapons out. We should've just shot you, but we saw the little girl."

    "We'll be keeping our weapons," my dad shouted back, "so it looks like we have a problem."

    Another pause, though not as long as the first. "We don't know who you are. And we've been attacked twice, with people hurt and killed. So I say you need to throw down your weapons."

    "Well, we were attacked yesterday, and I don't know who you are, so I'm damn sure not giving up my weapon," Dad replied. "And I will cut down any of you who tries to come closer. We can wait, and more of our people will come looking for us, and then you'll have a real war on."

    "No one wants that," came the reply. "Can one of you come out to talk? The others can stay behind the truck, with their weapons."

    My dad looked over to Mr. Caine, then down at me. "That's probably as good an offer as we're going to get," he said to me quietly. He tilted his head back and shouted, "All right. I'll come out and talk."

    My dad handed me the M16, bent down and kissed my head. "Don't do anything crazy to try and protect me," he said. "Just stay put. But anyone comes around this truck but me, shoot them in the face."

    He walked to the back of the truck and handed his Beretta to Mr. Caine. They spoke in low tones, but I could hear them. "It's like déjà vu from eleven years ago, fighting to keep this kid alive and get her home," my dad said. He glanced back at me. "Always good to have something worth fighting for. I know you'll do whatever you have to, Jonah, just like you did then. I'm sorry I got you and her in this mess."

    "Not your fault, Jack," Mr. Caine responded. "Just talk some sense into them if you can. Maybe they're not the ones who attacked Fran and the kids. There's no point anybody dying here today."

    I watched my dad walk around the side of the truck, then I just listened. It sounded like Dad was talking to a man close by.

    "Who are you people?" the other man asked.

    "We're from a nearby city. We've been barricaded in there since the outbreak. We haven't seen other people from outside our community for years, until yesterday, when some men broke through our fence and attacked us. We killed them, then we came here, looking for more supplies to repair the fence. Then you started shooting at us."

    "These men who attacked you, did they have a vehicle?"

    "Yes, a dump truck. There were six of them. They had a flag, with wavy lines, a handprint, and a sun."

    "Those sound like the men who attacked one of our outposts. A child escaped from that massacre and described them. That's our flag that you described. They took it as a trophy when they attacked our people."

    "And who, exactly, are you people?"

    "We are from the River Nation. We've lived on islands up and down the river since the day the dead rose. Gradually, the people got more organized, came together as a group to defend ourselves and find more supplies. And recently, we've been able to move about a little on the mainland. There seem to be less of the dead in this area lately, and we thought it was safe to establish villages here, until we were attacked."

    "Yes, there are fewer dead around because we've been rounding them up, to make the area safer."

    "You round the dead up? So you can dispose of them?"

    "Well, no, we've found places to lock them up, keep them contained so they can't attack us."

    There was a longer pause in the conversation at that point. "You keep the living dead around? You don't destroy them?"

    "Not if we can help it."

    Another pause. "That's very strange. We're not sure-the report just came in and it was very confused-but someone said that in the attack today, the man who shot at our people was seen with two zombies. The zombies attacked one of our men, but they didn't attack the stranger. They ran off with him. That's who we were looking for when we found you. Is this some plan of yours, to train and lead zombies to attack other people?"

    "No, of course not. We didn't know there were other people until yesterday. And we don't train zombies. We just put them somewhere and lock them up, so we don't have to kill them. Those assholes in the dump truck attacked you people, then they attacked us, and we killed them."

    "And what about today's attack?"

    "That I know nothing about," my dad answered truthfully. "I think we just need to calm down and stop pointing guns."

    Knowing of Will and his zombie friends, I had to say something. "Dad?" I called out over the hood of the truck, but without coming out from cover.

    "Not now," he shot back.

    "No, I think it's important. I think we can put our guns down. I think I know part of what's going on."

    "Don't come out from behind that truck, Zoey." There was a pause. "Jonah, go listen to what Zoey has to say, then tell me what we should do."

    Mr. Caine walked over to me, and I quickly told him of how Will and two zombies had helped save me the previous day. I told him how, according to Will, these zombies were more intelligent than others, and were mostly cured of their appetite for human flesh, though I had seen the one eat a man right in front of me.

    As I was describing this to Mr. Caine, I heard my dad continuing to negotiate with the man. "She's my daughter. And the other guy, he's just a school teacher. I'm sort of in charge. You can just let them go, whatever it is that's happened."

    Mr. Caine looked very surprised and worried at my story. I knew Will had always been a free spirit at best, and a little out of control at worst, and I'm sure Mr. Caine felt partly responsible if something bad had happened as a result of his adoptive son's behavior.

    "Jack," he called out when I was done, "I think we should come out and discuss this. I don't think these people are to blame for what's happened, or their response to it."

    There was another pause before my dad agreed, and Mr. Caine and I came out from behind the safety of the truck. The man who had been talking to my dad was dressed in the kind of clothes that Will usually wore when he was out in the wild-heavy canvas with metal pieces sewn onto the fabric to protect him from bites. He was probably my dad's age, not as tall-kind of short, in fact-but he had the same air of practicality and efficiency.

    Unlike our clothes, his seemed to have some insignia, like a military rank, and they appeared somewhat better made than most of ours.

    I tightened my hold on the grip of the M16 and scanned the cars around us, but couldn't see where the other people were.

    My dad put his hand on my shoulder. "Easy," he said quietly. "It's not time for heroics. Just tell me what's going on."

    I repeated the story of Will and the intelligent zombies. When I was done, my dad turned back to the military-looking man. "We knew nothing about this. If this is true what Will has done, we will deal with it. But this is not our fault. You should let us go back to our city."

    "I believe you," the man agreed. "I don't think you knew about this. But we can't let you just drive away with some vague assurance that you will ‘deal with' this madman and his zombies. If you leave here now, you might just protect him. And then we will go to war. We've done it before, against smaller groups who thought they could attack us or raid our supplies."

    Dad's grip tightened on my shoulder. "Who said anything about ‘smaller group' there, fella? And how did this city get to be ‘your supplies' when you're only here because we cleared out all the zombies? I got a whole building full of weapons we've never used before, just waiting for another guy stupid enough to threaten us."

    Mr. Caine finally intervened. "Enough of the posturing and threats, both of you. We understand that the River Nation wants justice, and we're sorry for the people who were hurt and killed in these attacks. I take it you are someone in authority?" He was being a lot more obsequious than I'd ever seen him, but he'd judged the situation rightly, I think.

    "Yes," the man said in a less threatening tone. "I am a commander of the military forces, Colonel Reiniger."

    Mr. Caine saw that he had gained some leverage. "So if you were to come with us and oversee the investigation we make of Will, you'd consider that fair, and you could report back to your people whether or not we had done what was necessary to prevent war?"

    The colonel considered, and finally agreed to Mr. Caine's terms. Disaster was averted for the time being, though I wasn't sure we'd be able to punish Will to this man's satisfaction, so I thought the problem had just been postponed.

    Five men armed with rifles emerged from among the cars in the parking lot. They were dressed similarly to the colonel, though each one wore a different insignia. The colonel told two of his men to report back to their people in the city. He then turned to us. "You may drive the truck back with the supplies. We didn't think anyone could've survived out here, without the water as a barrier, so we understand if you need to build back up your protection from the dead. We'll follow you in our vehicle."

    The colonel and his three remaining men walked out among the cars as we climbed into the truck. Mr. Caine started the engine. "Nice going back there," Dad said. "I let things get a little too heated."

    Mr. Caine nodded. "It happens. The ‘just a schoolteacher' comment was a little uncalled for."

    My dad snickered grimly. "I was just trying to talk you two out of it. Your way worked better."

    We saw some cars shudder and jerk slightly, and then the vehicle that had been pushing them out of the way came into view. It was a Humvee, with the same sort of extra bumper for pushing cars that our truck had. With some maneuvering, they turned around, and we pulled out with them behind us.

    To leave the parking lot, we had to go under an overpass. I looked into the passenger's side mirror at the Humvee, and I thought I saw something drop down onto the vehicle. The vehicle jerked one way, then the other, and crashed into a concrete barrier.