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woman’s face, a road map of fine lines. The vertical crevices of dark red lipstick around her mouth deepened as she took a quick drag. “I don’t know if I’d rather spend my last hours with the gaggle of hens over there or with the motley crew here, but I sure as hell don’t need some pigeon-toed pixie stomping all over me.”
    Cheryl’s already tense body stiffened like the laces of a steel corset had been violently tightened. As a young girl, she’d been pegged as a shy, polite type. There was still much of that in her today—the introverted girl who’d rather bow her head and back off than risk an escalating conflict. But the adrenaline was raging in her body right now, and after what she’d just seen outside the window, the rules of etiquette were no longer her biggest concern. She really wanted to slap this woman, maybe give her a good one-two punch—not the shadow type that she’d learned from kickboxing class at the gym, but a serious bone-cracking hit.
    Her hands balled into fists and her teeth clenched. “I said I was sorry.”
    The woman tossed her head back, took a long condescending drag, then blew smoke in Cheryl’s face.
    Before she could react, someone yelled, “Hey lady…put the cancer stick out.”
    A chorus of voices followed. “Yeah!”
    Cheryl felt empowered with the crowd behind her. “You heard them.”
    “Piss off!”
    Cheryl’s hand shot up and knocked the cigarette to the ground. The next thing she knew, the woman’s bony hands were around her throat, and she was falling hard on the tile floor.
    “Hey! Get offa her!” It was Mark. He pulled the woman off and sent her flying into a group of chairs. The sound was like a bowling ball hitting a strike.
    Cheryl tried to sit up and breathe, but found herself gasping for air.
    “Are you alright?” Mark asked along with the concerned group hunching over her.
    It was another minute before she could speak. “I…think so,” she said as her chest heaved in painful gulps of air, and she considered that it might not have been a good idea to stand up to a cranky pit bull wearing lipstick.
    Once she could breathe again, Mark helped her to her feet. She glanced nervously around, worried that the woman might come back again to retaliate, but the store was so dark, she couldn’t see more than an arm’s length away. She hobbled as he guided her over to a booth and sat down next to her.
    She melded into the cool plastic and leaned her head on the brick wall. Her voice came out in a raspy whisper. “What’s wrong with those people out there?”
    Mark leaned in closer and whispered back. “They’re sick.”
    She shook her head. “I’ve never seen anyone sick like that. They’re eating garbage…and people. They’re eating people!”
    “Keep it down, Cheryl. Everyone in here is already on edge.”
    “Of course they are. I’m on edge, too! What’s happening? You knew. Somehow, you knew this was going to happen, didn’t you? You were so quiet when we heard the news on the radio this morning.”
    He was silent for a moment then he wrapped his arms around her, hugged her, and kissed her on the cheek. She could feel wetness coming from his eyes.
    “You were erasing footsteps in the dirt outside the tent this morning, weren’t you?”
    She felt his head nod on her shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “I couldn’t. I was worried they were here.”
    “Who was here?”
    “The Eaters. I didn’t know then…I just—”
    “You didn’t know what?”
    Mark took a deep breath then began pouring a strange story out to her. “I think it started with the dogs. We got these shepherds at the base near Kabul, and they’d been trained to sniff out bombs. They brought them to us to do some more work with them, because they’d started acting strange…avoiding their food…and going for the slop in the garbage cans instead. We’d only had them for a few days when they got really sick and started attacking people. They just went crazy,