The first house held nothing but bones.

The windows were broken inward, letting us know how the infected got in. There must have been a lot of them because the bodies were consumed to the point there had been nothing left to reanimate, the parts and pieces torn away. I used my axe to bust the skulls just in case. Most were empty, but one, still attached to a short section of spine, burst open like a melon, leaking red and black ichor onto the rotten floor. I stared at the mess and felt a vague sense of horror. How long had that skull been lying there with an infected, reanimated brain inside, the rest of the flesh stripped away by the elements?

“Jesus,” Elena said behind me.

“Yeah.” I wiped my axe on the dusty couch and moved on.

I felt uncharacteristically naked. My usual salvage suit, consisting of heavy rubber boots, a firefighting outfit, and a motorcycle helmet, were back in the squad’s wagon. Instead, I wore fatigues augmented with Army-issue anti-revenant armor. The armor was thick leather with strips of hard plastic riveted to it. The pieces covered my insteps and lower legs up to the knee, as well as my hands and forearms up to the elbow. On my head was a helmet with a clear plastic face shield. The armor had come in with the most recent supply drop, and all militia members were required to wear it. I’d complained at the news, but Hahn had shaken her head insistently.

“It’s a wonder you never died in that suit of yours,” she said. “In this heat, it’s a fucking death trap.”

“Death trap my ass,” I said, growing angry. “That suit kept me alive for six years.”

Hahn’s expression softened and she put a hand on my arm. “I know, Muir. And I know you’re used to doing things your own way. But the rest of us have been fighting infected with no armor for just as long, and we survived too. Sooner or later, you’re gonna have to learn to trust us.”

I let out a breath and simmered down.

Pressing her advantage, Hahn said, “That’s what keeps us alive out here, you know. We watch each other’s backs. The fact you survived on your own for so long is nothing short of a miracle. But Alex, you’re not alone anymore. You don’t have to do everything by yourself. You’re part of a team now, and it’s time you started acting like it.”

I had nothing to say to that, so I just nodded and put the armor on.

“Alex, give me a hand over here,” Cason said, breaking the memory.

I looked around and saw him standing near an open cabinet in the kitchen.

“What do you got?” I asked.

He reached inside and pulled out a large glass jar, the kind sealed with a metal clamp. “What’s this look like to you?”

There was a smile on his face. I leaned closer and smiled too.

“Sugar.”

I held the bag. There were tea towels on another shelf Cason used to wrap the jar, then gently placed it inside.

“Let’s see what else we got.” Cason said.

There was a box of kosher salt, baking soda, and a can opener. All things the squad needed. I found a Japanese kitchen knife that would have cost a couple hundred dollars before the Outbreak. Even after over six years sitting in a butcher block, it was still sharp enough to shave with. I wrapped it in a towel and claimed it as my own. In another cabinet, I found a set of high-end water stones, no doubt bought to sharpen the knife with. Those went into my assault pack as well.

We had a duffel bag for items designated for immediate use, meaning it was stuff the militia always needed, no matter how much we found. Scissors, tools, ammo, weapons, toilet paper, feminine hygiene products, dental floss, fishing line, and medical supplies, just to name a few. We found several items things on the list, bagged them, then spray painted EG CPY, 7, DELTA on the door. Eagle Company, Seventh Platoon, Delta Squad. This let the logistics teams know who to give credit for the salvage when they came by later to make their inventory. Not that they would take much away. Most would be left for the Army reclamation teams scheduled to show up later in the year. Or next year. Or whenever the hell. The date kept getting pushed back.

The next house was more of the same, minus the skeletons. The windows were still intact on this one, the inside neat and tidy, albeit caked in years of dust and sagging from changes in heat and cold. Without climate control, the insides of houses had deteriorated after the Outbreak. Most were still safe to search, but had we been in a wet climate or someplace that froze in the winter, our job would have been much more dangerous.

House number three was where things got weird.

It was a single level ranch, no garage. The windows on this one were boarded up, telling me the owner had sensed things going south and taken precautions. I wondered if we would find any skeletons inside as I tried the door. No joy. Barricaded from the inside. Cason and I walked a circle around one side while Elena and Rohan took the other.

We reached the back of the house at the same time and stopped. The back door, a sliding glass or French door judging by the size of it, had been boarded over. But on one side, the plywood had a hole in it. Not a little hole. Not a bullet hole, or one made by a sledgehammer or axe, but one big enough for a man to step through. And it looked like that was exactly what happened, at very high speed. I stepped closer and examined the outline. It looked like a very large person had thrown themselves at the plywood, which was already brittle from exposure, with such force as to simply sail right through it. The outline of the body was almost cartoonish.

“Must have been a big motherfucker,” Cason said.

“Cason, you and Chopra stay here,” Elena said. “And stay alert. Anything comes out of this house, shoot first and don’t worry about questions. Muir, bring your axe. I need you to chop open these windows so we can see inside. I’ll cover you.”

“Sounds good,” I said absently, still staring at the hole.

It took less than ten minutes to cut a hole in the exterior windows. The boards over them were dry and brittle and would have fallen off on their own soon. When finished, we cautiously peered inside, looking for threats. Nothing obvious presented itself, so we decided to make entry.

Our weapons were equipped with lights, but we used them only rarely. Batteries that still worked were a precious commodity and had to be conserved. During orientation, Hahn had explained to me that any batteries we found were to be marked for retrieval. When I asked why, she told me they probably wouldn’t work, but the Phoenix Initiative had a way to fix them. It was why the government was still able to issue batteries to combat units, including militias. My next question was what the hell was a Phoenix Initiative, which prompted an explanation that left me with more questions than answers. I said as much, and Hahn told me at that point, I knew as much as she did.

Anyway, our batteries were of the refurbished government variety, and we only had what we had until the next supply drop. But for entries like this one, Elena could justify using them. So the lights went on, and in we went.

Elena was first, followed by Chopra. They broke left, Cason and I broke right. I followed Cason inside and tried to remember everything my father, an LAPD SWAT officer, had taught me about room entry procedures. Mostly it consisted of keeping your weapon ready without pointing it at the man in front of you. That much I could do.

We cleared each room, calling out as we went. We checked closets, under beds, anywhere a ghoul or crazed human might be hiding. There was a torn-up body on the living room floor, but after establishing it wasn’t getting up, we ignored it.

After checking the last room on our side, Cason called out clear and Elena did the same. The four of us met in the living room, weapons down. The light from the holes in the windows I carved were enough to see for salvage purposes, so we turned off the flashlights. All except Elena. She walked closer to the body lying on the floor and shined her light on it.

“Holy shit,” she said softly.

The rest of us walked over. “What?” I asked.

“Guys, look at this.”

We did, studying where Elena pointed. It took me a few seconds to realize what I was looking at, and when I did, a mix of confusion and dread coiled around my stomach and grew thorns.

“What the fuck?” Cason said.

“Exactly,” Elena replied.

“It’s a ghoul,” I said.

“And it’s not dead. Not all the way,” Chopra added.

He was right. The head was still attached, but turned the wrong way, staring at us over its own back. That explained why it hadn’t moved. The eyes were still open, red and savage as any other ghoul. They swiveled back and forth in their sockets, eyelids twitching spasmodically. The only other movement was a few facial tics. If its jaw had still been attached, I imagine it would have been chomping at us.

Elena moved the flashlight over the rest of the corpse. The body was mangled, limbs broken, spine snapped in two places, ribs gaping open as though torn by the hands of some impossibly strong beast. I glanced at the humanoid plywood cutout, and then back at the wreckage below me.

Most disturbing of all, the internal organs and nearly half the flesh had been ripped away. Kneeling down, I looked closer and saw marks in the remaining muscle tissue and along the bones.

“What are you looking at?” Elena said.

“Come closer. Look here at the lower leg, and here on the femur bone.”

She did as I asked. “What am I looking at?”

“These marks. Here and here. I’ve seen marks similar to this before.”

“Where?”

“On deer carcasses. Ones that were taken down by coyotes. They’re teeth marks, I think, but not like any I’ve ever seen.”

“Teeth marks?”

“Yeah.”

“Wait,” Chopra said, “you’re saying something ate this thing?”

“I’m just telling you what I see.”

“But it’s a ghoul,” Chopra went on. “What the fuck eats a ghoul?”

I pointed toward the cartoon hole in the plywood covering the door.

“If I had to guess, I’d say whatever did that.”

*******************************************************************************************************

After a long day of searching houses, the talk should have been about what salvage we’d found, what the various squads expected to be paid for it, and how badly one group or another kept getting screwed over on AORs. There should have been bickering and teasing and people trading pilfered items and even a little casual flirtation here and there.

There was none of that.

The platoon regulars stood in clusters among the yards and cracked pavement, talking in low voices. The squad leaders and our platoon sergeant, a man inexplicably referred to as Top, all conferred together under the shade of a tilted carport. The conversations all boiled down to the same question.

What the hell happened here?

Not a single animated ghoul had been found. Not a single shot fired all day. The half-eaten ghoul my team discovered was only the first of many. And when I say many, I mean hundreds. It hadn’t stopped anyone from completing the day’s mission, but as reports continued to roll in of ghouls that had been eaten by some sort of predator post-reanimation, the sense of weirdness became an oppressive weight on everyone’s minds.

I was standing with Elena, Rohan, Cason, and a couple of guys from alpha squad. I’d spent the last five minutes listening to them ask each other the same questions over and over again, and I was tired of it. I left the conversation behind and began walking toward one of the houses.

“Where are you going?” Elena called after me.

“I want another look at those ghouls.”

I heard footsteps crunching to catch up with me. “Good. I’ll come with you.”

A faint smile creased my face. Of course she wanted another look. She used to be a cop, after all. Cops don’t like mysteries.

I stepped into one of the houses we’d searched and knelt beside the savaged ghoul in the kitchen. This one had been a Gray. That alone would have been enough to creep me out. I don’t know what it is about those things, but they give me the heebie-jeebies even worse than regular infected. This one, however, wouldn’t be bothering anyone ever again. Its head had been torn clean off, its internal organs were gone, and much of the flesh on the limbs was missing. I used some precious battery power to get a better look at a few spots, then asked Elena to follow me while I walked around the scene.

“A few things jump out at me,” I said.

“Shoot.”

“This thing wasn’t killed here. There are drag marks outside the back door leading into the kitchen.”

I pointed at the sand. “Whatever did this killed it somewhere else and brought it here to feed.”

“Yeah, I noticed that. What else do you see?”

“All these ghouls have a few things in common. One, they were disabled. Their necks were broken, skulls smashed, or they were just plain decapitated. This thing wanted to make sure its prey couldn’t put up a fight.”

“Pretty good so far, Muir. What else?”

I glanced at her. I probably wasn’t telling her anything she hadn’t already seen, but I went on anyway.

“Second, the teeth marks on all the corpses are the same. I don’t just mean similar, I mean the same.”

“You sure about that?”

“Pretty sure. Look at this.”

I pointed to an indentation in the sand.

“I’m no great tracker, but I learned a thing or two hunting over the last six years. That right there is a track.”

Elena squatted down and looked closer.

“Son of a bitch. I see it now. It looks…”

“Not human, but still kind of human.”

“Yeah. The shape is wrong to be human. Too wide, too long, and the bone structure isn’t right. And these holes in the ground. Claw marks, you think?”

“That would be my guess.”

She looked up at me. “Seen any more of these around?”

“A few. I don’t have measuring equipment, but I’d say they probably all match.”

Elena stood up and put her hands on her hips. “So you think there was only one of…whatever the hell did this?”

“I do.”

She thought about that a few seconds. “What other theories do you have?”

“I think whatever it is, it’s been treating this place like a larder. Its own private pantry. It comes here, eats a few ghouls, and takes off. Whenever it’s hungry, it comes back again. God only knows how long this has been going on.”

Another few seconds of thought. “We need more evidence to bring this to Cortez.”

“So let’s go get it.”

“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

Elena left at a trot back toward the platoon leadership conference at the carport. I stayed put and stared at the footprint.

What fresh hell is this?

When Elena came back, she had a digital camera, a tape measure, and a ruler.

“Let’s do this.”

My job was to find the tracks and take measurements. Elena took pictures and wrote everything down in a little notebook. I offered to do the writing, but she waved me away and muttered something about collection procedures and cataloguing. We went on like this for another two hours before I heard a whistle blow.

“Wagons are coming,” I said, standing up from the ground.

Elena looked northward. Her sweaty hair clung to her face and her eyes were bright with the intensity of focus.

“Shit. There’s still a lot to collect.”

“We examined over twenty corpses. I think we ought to have enough. All the measurements are the same for everything.”

“Still, we should look all the bodies over. Make sure. We could be missing something.”

I sighed. Elena was nothing if not thorough.

“Maybe Cortez will let us come back tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

*****

The next morning, I awoke to find Cortez squatting next to our campfire, digging the bean pot out of the ground.

“Morning, Padre,” I said.

He turned and smiled. “Good morning, Alex. You are up early.”

“Usually am,” I said. I walked over and sat down on a stool. “You pull kitchen duty again?”

A laugh. “No. I am just hungry. Would you care to help me?”

I started digging. “Don’t you have beans over there at the command tent?”

“I have heard that yours are better.”

“Somebody lied to you.”

Another laugh.

I hauled the pot out of the ground and brushed dirt off the top. A taste told me the beans were cooked, they just needed a quick fry for taste.

“Try them,” I held out the ladle. The priest poured a bite into his mouth.

“Not bad. Let us make breakfast for your squad.”

It wasn’t my day to do it, but I nodded anyway. Cortez got the frying pan warming up while I cut the potatoes. By the time I’d hung them up to cook, he was already kneading dough for bread. We took turns rolling them out and had a round frying by the time Elena, the other early riser, was out of her tent.

“Good morning, Commander,” she said.

“Good morning. Would you like some breakfast?”

“Of course.”

I made her a plate of fried beans and offered to fry her potatoes. She said she preferred them boiled. I didn’t, so I fried mine and made another batch for Cortez.

“Hey, thought I was on kitchen duty this morning,” Lowe said as he lumbered toward the fire.

“I was up first,” I said, and pointed at Cortez. “And I had help.”

Lowe noticed the priest, and to my surprise, brought his hands together and bowed his head.

“Good morning, Father.”

“Good morning Mr. Lowe. Please, join us.”

It wasn’t long before the rest of the squad followed their nose to breakfast. The other campsites around us came to life as well, the smell of fried beans and flatbread hanging on the breeze. It was a rare overcast morning, but I could not smell rain on the air. Made sense. It was not the time of the year for rain. Autumn and winter were usually dry, the rains only coming at the height of summer, which had already passed.

When everyone was finished eating, Lowe thanked me again for cooking and took the dishes toward the water barrel. Hahn announced it was time for everyone to be about their daily duties, putting a final note on the morning’s brief fellowship. As I was getting up to leave, Cortez put a hand on my shoulder.

“Alex, I need you to come with me. It is important.”

I looked at Hahn. She was watching the conversation and gave a nod. Something told me Cortez had already spoken with her.

I looked down at him, curiosity mixing with caution. “Sure.”

“Bring some water. And your axe.”

“My axe?”

“Yes. Please hurry. I have much to do today.”

“Okay. Just a minute.”

I filled my canteen, strapped my axe across my shoulders, and followed the priest away from camp. We walked northwest toward the interstate. Around us, people bustled back and forth, some offering short greetings to Cortez, but most simply going about their business. This section of the camp was all wagons and tents and livestock pens. The smell of manure was strong, but by midmorning, scrapings would be drying on the highway’s hot pavement to be used for fuel later.

“Sort of feels like the old west, doesn’t it?” I asked.

Cortez smiled. “In some ways, yes. Technology is still available, but humanity has, for the most part, resumed a more primitive existence.”

“Is it like this in Colorado?”

He glanced at me. “In most places, yes. In the Springs, things are better.”

“I’d like to see it,” I said. “After being alone for so long, I want to know what it’s like to be in a city again.”

“God willing, this time next year, we will all be there.”

We kept walking. Cortez’s gait and body language told me I was expected to follow.

“So where are we headed?”

“The rifle platoon’s staging area. Captain Hicks would like to see you.”

“What about?”

“You will have to ask him.”

If I was curious before, I was fascinated now. I wondered if it had anything to do with the findings Elena and I had reported.

A few minutes later, we reached the rifle platoon’s section of camp. They were part of Falcon company, technically third platoon. And while most platoons numbered fifty to sixty people, the mounted riflemen were more than a hundred strong, forming the backbone of the Hellbreakers. In the old days, they would have been called light cavalry. I wondered if any of them carried sabres as an homage to the soldiers of another time.

Cortez led me to a tent near the platoon’s corral. Hicks was sitting on a stool out front writing something in a notebook. He noticed us approaching, stashed the notebook in a pack at his feet, and stood up to greet us.

“Mr. Muir.”

“Captain.”

“I will leave you to it,” Cortez said. “Good luck, Alex.”

He smiled at my confused look and strode away, leaving me alone with Hicks.

“You still interested?”

I looked back at Hicks. “What?”

“In becoming a soldier.”

“Uh…yeah. Why? What’s going on?”

“I’m going to the north side of the city to recon the Storm Road Tribe’s camp. We’ll be gone for a few days. I need a guide. You up to it?”

I blinked a couple of times. “Shouldn’t I…you know, train first?”

A grin. “What do you think this is?”

There were two packs on the ground. One I knew belonged to Hicks, the other had no obvious owner. There were two rifles, and two gunbelts as well.

“I need to get some things from camp.”

“Soldiers go in the field with what they’re issued. We’ve got everything we need.”

“I believe you, but I’d rather bring my own weapons.”

“These are good. I inspected them this morning.”

He noticed my dubious look and said, “If I’m going to train you, you’re going to have to trust me.”

It took me a long minute to make the decision. I didn’t know Hicks. Had no idea how skilled or knowledgeable he was. Had no clue if he was leading me on an adventure or walking me to my death. But in the end, I had to admit he was right. If I wanted to learn what he had to teach, I was going to have to trust him.

“Fine. When do we leave?”

“Help me saddle the horses.”