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“It’s going to be scary and dangerous. It’s not a good place out there anymore. But I’m going to find survivors, and I’m going to find a safe place for everyone, okay? And we’re going to make it a good world again.”
    Pablo nickered softly and she stroked his neck. Gently, calming him.
    Rachael was relieved. Luck was on her side today. On horseback she could move faster, cover more ground. She could find survivors, and get back to Brett and their group easily.
    “It’s okay. See, we can stop the world from ending. We’ll make it all okay.”
     

 
~10~
     
     
    The Ranger and the Dog
     
     
     
    They moved through the wood with practiced ease, the dog leading and the man following. They went as fast as caution would allow, and not one step faster. There were no screams in the forest, which was encouraging.
    But Baskerville suddenly stopped and looked off to his left. Not in the direction they’d been following. The ranger drew his fighting knife and crouched beside the dog, touching the animal’s side in order to read the degree of tension. Baskerville was trembling. The dog did not fear the living. Not at all. But when there were zombies around the animal shivered like this. Even Baskerville feared the dead, and the ranger could understand why. Unlike human enemies, the dog could not use its fearsome fangs against the zombies. Canine instincts—or maybe it was some kind of prescience, the ranger didn’t really know—made the dog fear the blood of the zombies. There were parasites in that black blood; tiny threadlike white worms, and they were the true monsters of this apocalypse. Genetically-modified larva that carried a chemical witch’s brew cooked up in a Cold War bioweapons lab long ago. Lucifer 113 . Conceived by Soviet scientists and then remodeled by a deranged prison doctor here in the U.S. Madness on all sides, and when the devil had slipped its chain the world was consumed.
    Baskerville could not know or understand any of that, but it had a strong reaction to the presence of the dead. It would smash into them, knock them down, but it wouldn’t bite. And the dog was even careful not to walk in spilled black blood. It’s why Baskerville was still alive.
    It’s why the ranger was still alive. They were a team.
    Baskerville was the best weapon against living human foes or against the packs of feral dogs that roved these woods. But it was the ranger who fought and killed the zombies.
    The ranger tapped the dog’s shoulder once. A question. Close?
    Baskerville did not react, which was the answer. No.
    Or at least not close enough to be an immediate threat. Nearby, though. The dog shivered, wanting to get away, so the ranger rose and used his knee to gently nudge the animal back toward the path they were following. Baskerville lingered a moment longer, giving an uncertain look to the dense forest, and then turned, sniffed to recapture the girl’s scent, and took off.
    The ranger slid his knife back into its sheath and followed.
    The forest was a series of densely wooded hills with a few small streams cutting through it. The slopes and gullies were nothing to the dog, but the man felt his leg muscles begin to burn as he moved. He was fifty, not twenty, and this kind of thing was a young man’s game. Once upon a time he would have run twenty miles of this for fun, but as he saw it that ship sailed, hit an iceberg, caught fire and sank. Now he felt every one of his years, every inch of scar tissue, every bit of calcification on broken bones. The kid they chased, though, must have been a marathon runner before the damned apocalypse. She was well ahead and seemed able to go through holes in the shrubbery where a rabbit wouldn’t have tried.
    Great natural athleticism will do that. So will stark terror.
    Baskerville suddenly shot forward faster as the ground leveled out into an overgrown farm cornfield. As the ranger raced to catch up he saw the clear marks of small sneakered feet in the dirt.