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had it in for each other. “Only the nine of us on fifteen hundred acres and Monsieur still can’t find any food that suits him? No wonder you can’t figure out how to just follow the damned highway until you find an unguarded hoo-city, if you’re that stupid right from the get-go—”
    Ben growled, raising his good fist; Sam put a hand on his arm, coaxing, and Ben fell silent. Mags was right, of course, we weren’t exactly tussling for scraps out here and even in the populated areas, where you’d be fighting the likes of the Rat Patrol and the Way of All Flesh for the hoo-goodies, there’s always more than enough to go round—the old north-county steel towns, the unincorporated unguarded bits of what used to be a dozen different suburbs, that’s a full larder by any measure. Ben, Billy, Mags, Joe, they all go hoo-hunting up there now and again. Never have myself, never tasted human flesh—yeah, it happens, and more than you’d think! Joe keeps trying to drag me along, keeps threatening never to come back from one of his meat runs, but he always does. They all do. It’s quieter here. Mostly. There’s nothing wrong with liking things quiet.
    “So what do I do now?” Teresa repeated, eyes back on me. Her fingers clenched suddenly, crushing the beetles on Joe’s throat with a thousand small crunches. “I still don’t know. But since you all just throw away what’s mine, not a second thought, maybe I should do the same for you.”
    She pulled her arm back, grunting, and Joe flew from her grasp, hurtled sideways and crashed into a cluster of wrought-iron benches. Under shouts and the clatter of falling metal came a gunshot crack and I stumbled toward him, my stomach a stone—she’d broken his back, she’d broken his neck, he was crippled and he’d be stomped in the skull for everyone’s good and I wouldn’t allow it, I’d bring him food and kill her to get it—while Teresa just stood there and laughed. New Thing, long since forgotten, moaned quietly on the gazebo steps. Her chemical stink was everywhere, perfuming the trees.
    Joe lay curled on the upended benches, stunned but unhurt; the cracking sound was a tree branch he took down as he fell. Linc came stumbling up, offering him an unwanted helping hand; Joe shoved us both aside, wrenched himself to his feet and stalked into the woods without looking back. Teresa jerked her head toward me, then the ’maldie.
    “Cal Memorial’s vomited up another one,” she said. “Take care of your little neighbor for me, I don’t have the patience.”
    Lucky me. Mags, Ben and I went and yanked New Thing off the steps. I couldn’t do this one-handed.
    Ever read how they used to put pennies on dead people’s eyes, to weight them shut? Florian had those. Nowadays, though, they use eyecaps: big plastic lenses with tiny tent-pole spikes on the outside, covering the whole eyeball and keeping the lids anchored like awnings. There’s no way to get them out except to hold the ’maldie down, peel the eyelids back and pry them out, hoping you don’t accidentally gouge out an eye. And we haven’t gotten to the really fun part yet—the mouthpiece. It’s always so tempting just to leave their whiny lips sealed shut. With every touch, New Thing flinched like I’d punched her.
    “I’m gonna open your eyes,” I said. “They’re sealed shut, that’s why you can’t open them. Okay? You understand?”
    No answer. As Mags and Ben gripped her arms, I pried gently at one eyelid; not sewed shut, good. Much easier. I gave the eyecap a little tap, got a grip on it—
    —and tore her eyelid in two when she wrenched away and let out a muffled banshee-shriek of panic. I grabbed her hair, and her scalp slid sideways; a wig, I should have guessed. Mags slapped her hard, bellowing, “Stay still!”
    She thrashed harder, back arching, and Ben kicked her. “For God’s sake, Jessie, are you gonna help us hold her down?”
    “I’ve got one hand, moron, how can I do this and