After we heard the long burst of gunfire, we made off in the direction from which it came. It sounded fairly close, and Will periodically stopped to look around with binoculars. After moving and searching like this for some time, he spotted something. "There," he said, pointing to the left. "There's a vehicle moving among the cars in that parking lot. We'll be able to see better from up on that overpass."

    We clambered up the embankment and over the guard rail, and with his binoculars Will looked out over the parking lot of a ruined shopping center. Several people moved among the cars in front of us, and three emerged from a store, carrying big, white bundles to a nearby truck. I heard a voice, though I couldn't make out the words, then more gunfire; the three people from the store ran behind the truck.

    The gunfire stopped, and there was more shouting. One person came out from behind the truck and joined one of the people who had been hiding among the cars. Their voices were low enough that I couldn't hear them, but I took it they were talking again. Then the other two people emerged from behind the truck.

    Finally, all the men among the cars came out from hiding. Two of them went off on foot, while the others went back to their vehicle, and the three people who had had the white bundles got into the truck. The other vehicle maneuvered till it was behind the truck, then they both started moving slowly, sometimes bumping into cars and pushing them out of their way.

    Will lowered his binoculars and looked around the overpass, which was littered with vehicles and various other things. I could tell he was formulating some plan, and part of me wanted to help, but I also wasn't really up to all this. Out of the back of a pickup, which was smashed into some other cars, Will got out two cinder blocks. He set them on top of the guard rail at the side of the overpass. "The people in the truck are my friends," he said. "The one man is the man who raised me, and then there's Zoey and her dad. I don't know what the other men are doing, but they just shot at them, so it can't be good. It looks like they're leading them somewhere. They're going to drive out this way. You two crouch down here, and after the truck goes past, try to push the blocks over so they fall on the Humvee. I'll go down and try to stop them when they get out."

    As too often with Will and the other people, I felt sure that words like "stop" meant "kill." For people who could talk, they certainly did way too much communicating in violent, non-verbal ways.

    "Can you two do this?" Will asked.

    I doubted very much that I could. I most certainly did not want to, but if the intelligent and kind-looking girl was in danger, I felt I had to help.

    "Can you do this?" Will repeated.

    Lucy and I nodded.

    "Okay. But please, stay up here. This is all too dangerous, and I don't know what's going to happen."

    He ran to the end of the overpass. Across his back, he carried the gun I had taken from the man I had shot, and he had his own handgun out and ready to use.

    The two vehicles slowly made their way through the parking lot, as it was hard for them to find spaces that weren't crowded with abandoned vehicles. The cars thinned somewhat closer to the overpass, and the two vehicles moved faster, though still fairly slow.

    The truck passed under us, and as the other vehicle approached, Lucy and I shoved the two cinder blocks off. I could hear glass shattering, then the sounds of brakes, then more smashing glass and a heavier crunch of metal.

    I heard car doors opening, and men cursing. Lucy took my hand and led me to the other end of the overpass. I was frightened, but I couldn't let her go by herself. Besides, hiding hadn't done us any good the other two times these people had decided on violence. We worked our way between the wrecked cars and climbed down the embankment on the side facing away from the shopping center.

    As we scrambled down, I heard various shouts.

    "No, Will! Don't!"

    "What is this, a trap?"

    Lucy and I must've made some noise, because suddenly I was staring down the barrel of a rifle. I was surprised to see the intelligent-looking girl holding it. These people even had their children use guns, which I found quite monstrous and reprehensible.

    I gripped Lucy's hand tighter, and raised it, along with my other hand, hoping this would be enough of a sign that we meant no harm. The girl slightly lowered the hideous, black rifle and called out, "Dad, they're here. The two I saw before."

    She was near the front of the truck, closest to Lucy and me. The tall man and another man were on the other side, closer to the vehicle Lucy and I had dropped the cinder blocks on. Three men were out on both sides of that vehicle. Will was beyond those men, closer to the shopping center. Everyone was holding guns, pointed at each other.

    The tall man near the truck looked over his shoulder at Lucy and me. He didn't turn all the way around, but kept his gun pointed at the other men. He looked us over. "These are the ones you told us about, Zoey?"

    "Yes, Dad."

    He turned away from us to keep his eye on the men from the other vehicle. "Either one of them so much as twitches, blow their smart zombie brains out. Let's see if they understand that."

    The intelligent-looking girl kept her gun slightly lowered. "But, Dad," she said.

    "I need that order acknowledged, Zoey. Now."

    The girl raised the terrible rifle again. She squared her shoulders and her muscles tensed as she lined up the sights, the barrel pointed right at my face. "Yes, Dad," she said more quietly than her father had spoken. There was a little of his edge in her voice, and though her pretty brown eyes still looked extremely intelligent, she narrowed them and they did not look nearly as kind. I was glad she was the one pointing a gun at us, though-mostly because I felt more confident she wouldn't shoot us for no reason. I was glad the gun was pointed at me rather than Lucy. But even more than that, I had a strange sense that if such an intelligent, innocent person were to judge us a deadly, implacable threat, maybe we needed to be put down.

    "Jack! No!" Will shouted from the other side of the people and the vehicles. "It's not their fault!"

    "No," the tall man, Jack, responded, "it's not their fault, Will, it's yours!"

    "You can't, Dad," the girl said, though the barrel of her rifle didn't waver at all. "They saved my life."

    "We can't shoot zombies? Will went around shooting people, for God's sake! Without letting any of us know, or checking out what was going on. That's what caused this, and now we have to figure out a way to stop it. Shooting zombies is something I definitely can do if it helps straighten things out."

    "But they attacked us!" Will shouted.

    Fortunately, the conversation had not been punctuated with gunfire, but at this point it degenerated into incoherent shouting, in which I could make out variously, "No we didn't!… No they didn't!… Yes they did!… No, you did!" I suddenly felt very cold and empty-almost pained, even though I wasn't sure I could feel pain exactly. Lucy and I were going to die simply because these people seemed to end all their conversations with shooting.

    I tightened my grip on Lucy's hand and thought at least I'd die with her, instead of alone. That was something. Maybe I could even shield her if I could move fast enough once these strange, monstrous people started their inevitable slaughter.

    The girl lowered her rifle and took a step towards us. She put her right hand out in front of herself, with the palm towards us, as if to show she meant us no harm. For some reason it occurred to me that, from the way she was holding her gun, she must be left-handed, and I thought how ironic that was, since there was an old superstition that left-handedness was evil, and she was the only one behaving kindly, or even rationally. But that was only superstition, and I didn't think people believed in that anymore.

    I nodded and took a step back, pulling Lucy with me.

    The girl turned towards the men and shrieked, "Stop it! Just stop it!"

    The two men closer to her glanced back at her, and they all stopped shouting.

    In a lower but very firm and decisive tone, the girl said, "Mr. Caine, tell Will what happened."

    "Will," the man beside Jack began, "the men who attacked Fran and the girls had attacked these people the day before. When they attacked them they took the flag of this city. That's why it was on their truck. When you shot at them this morning, you hurt innocent people. You have to stop now, please." He sounded very plaintive and sad, but like the girl, intelligent and reasonable.

    Will had said his father was one of the two men, and I sensed such a bond between Will and this man, Mr. Caine.

    I was now ashamed at the part I had played in all this, but I also knew I couldn't have let Lucy get hurt, back in the city. So I felt shame, but not guilt. I could see Will was distraught at what had happened, too.

    "Will," the tall man said, "you need to stand down and come with us."

    "What?" one of the men by the other vehicle objected. "We're taking him prisoner!"

    "You know you have no right," Jack said with exceptional evenness, clarity, and coldness.

    Besides the girl's rifle, every other gun was still pointed at someone's head. I again got that empty, icy feeling that I was going to die next to Lucy.

    "You have no… no… jurisdiction," Jack said. "That's the word."

    The other man gave a snorting laugh. "Jurisdiction? What are you talking about? There's no jurisdiction or law anymore!"

    "Suit yourself," Jack said. "But if there's no law, then there's just guns, and we both got 'em, and that's how we'll settle it. But he is definitely coming home with us now, and we'll decide what happens to him."

    There was a pause that seemed endless to me. Mr. Caine spoke. "Colonel Reiniger, this doesn't have to change our agreement. You come with us, we decide what happens to Will, and you report back to your people. If our decision is unacceptable, then there's war, but not now."

    "He attacked us again!" the other man said.

    "All right, that's true," Will's father said wearily. "But so long as your driver isn't too badly hurt, then I guess what we're asking you to do is to overlook this last incident, to forgive that mistake, so we can decide on what to do and not have more killing."

    "We were ambushed. You might try it again if we come with you. I never should've trusted you," Colonel Reiniger said.

    Mr. Caine sighed. "All right," he said as he put his hands up and walked over to the truck. "I'm putting down my gun." He set it on the hood of the truck. "I'll stay here with your men. Will is my son. It's fair I stay here in his place. You go on ahead. Is that fair enough?"

    I was amazed all over again; these people were ready to kill for no reason one minute, then ready to sacrifice themselves for each other the next. I felt it was some kind of mystery that I might never understand.

    "Jonah, you don't have to," Jack said. "You shouldn't."

    "Or what, Jack?" He sounded exasperated as well as weary. "You said it yourself-the other choice is we start shooting. Maybe, if they're lucky, then Zoey and those two," he tilted his chin towards us, "would be left standing, since they have a better position behind us and the truck. I know the meek are supposed to inherit the earth, but shit, Jack, I don't feel like shooting anymore today. And I want someone to get home."

    "No, don't," Will protested. "I'll stay."

    "No, Will," his father said, "Jack's right-we can't let these people decide your fate. It's not their place. You're our responsibility. You're my responsibility." He turned back towards the men by the other vehicle. "Now, Colonel, is that fair, so at least they can get home?"

    The colonel stepped back and looked inside his vehicle, like he was checking someone there. "His head's banged up and bleeding, but I think he'll be all right," he said. "He'll stay here with you and one of my other men, and they'll take you back to our base. I'll take one man and go on after the truck. That is a reasonable solution."

    I wasn't sure if "reasonable" was the right word for it, or if these kinds of decisions were supposed to be governed by reason, but at least it seemed to be a non-violent solution.

    "What about them?" the girl asked, gesturing towards Lucy and me. It seemed to be yet another problem of being mute-people tended to ignore and forget about you when they were talking and making plans. Though in the preceding conversation, I had been glad they'd left us out of most of it.

    Will had joined Jack and Zoey, while Will's father had gone over to join the men by the other vehicle. "They'll be shot if we leave them here," Jack said.

    "We should take them with us," Will suggested. "Later you can take them back to the storage place where Milton put them."

    Jack considered us. He pulled open the door at the back of the truck. "All right, there you go."

    Lucy and I climbed in. They all looked at us for a moment.

    "I heard about what you did for Zoey," Jack added. He sounded a little contrite. "I'm sorry about the thing I said to Zoey-you know, to shoot you. You all kind of showed up at a bad time in the conversation, but saving someone's life deserves a lot better than how I treated you. I'm sorry. We'll protect you now, and we're grateful for what you did for Zoey."

    I nodded. Lucy seemed a bit more sullen, but at least she didn't growl at them. I would've felt embarrassed if she had, for I knew they were doing the best they could, given their shortcomings and violent urges. The tall man closed the door, and we were left in the dark. I put my arm around Lucy and held her as the truck lurched forward and we bounced along to whatever these people were going to decide was our fate.