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getting out.” He opened the door and shouted at the people. “Hey, free ride!”
    Reaching down, Jorge leaned his seat forward for everyone to climb into the back, but he didn’t make enough room. The first person to try, a young woman, had to blow out all of her breath to get through.
    “Come on, Jorge,” Ken said. “Really? Just get out, already. God damn , man, lay off the beer.”
    Shooting a black look at Ken, Jorge got out and stepped out of the way. As he did, several figures flocked to the open door, and soon the back seat was stuffed with four huddled people. Before Jorge could react, someone else, a sweaty fat man with a flat face and olive-hued skin, locked Jorge’s seat in its upright position and jumped right in.
    Jorge stared at him in disbelief, then his jaw dropped when yet another person jumped in the front, a slight girl holding a small dog.
    “Ken...” he said.
    “I don’t know,” Ken replied, realizing that it really wasn’t an answer. The Blazer rocked, and he looked back, seeing people clambering onto the tool trailer, escaping the screams and gunshots behind them.
    He blew out a breath, looked at Jorge, and cocked his head toward the trailer. “Just get on, man.”
    “Ken!”
    “Just do it , will you? This isn’t the time.”
    Jorge’s face darkened, but he nodded. “There will be a time, you can bet your ass on that.” He tromped to the back of the Blazer and got in.

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    BY THE TIME DR. CRISPIN and the three team leaders made it back to the dining room, it was already full to capacity and beyond. All manner of men and women with worried looks lined the walls. Many of them Donovan didn’t recognize from dinner, like the large man with dirty blond hair who stood at the front of the dining room. The man’s thumbs were hooked in the belt loops of his dark-blue coveralls.
    Donovan looked around and shook his head at the general atmosphere of anxiety. A glance at Jaden’s face told him the head of security shared his feelings. Dr. Crispin’s announcement over the loudspeakers had been poorly worded and frightening, but at least it had achieved the desired effect: everyone had gathered in one place as quickly as possible.
    Ignoring all the pleading glances, Dr. Crispin marched to the front of the room. As he passed the large blond man in coveralls, he put his hand out, and the big man dropped his head once in quick acknowledgment.
    “That’s Alpha McLoughlin,” Jaden told Donovan. “The rest of the Dogs are there behind him, minus Kaiser and Samson.”
    “They’re still in therapy?” Donovan’s sharp eyes roved over the band of homiform Dogs, wondering what they would look like after they changed.
    At the head of the room, Dr. Crispin took to a podium that a member of the maintenance staff had set up. Two harried-looking technicians were hooking a sleek black microphone into an amplifier, which they had already attached to a pair of oversized speakers.
    Dr. Crispin tapped the microphone, filling the room with a whine of feedback. The reaction was universal.
    “Good, it works,” he said. “I have an announcement. If any of you have already heard the rumors, it appears that they are true. As we dine, as we speak, the world outside our compound has been set upon by... well, I don’t know how else to put it.” He looked around the room. “The walking dead.”
    This was met with a mixture of gasps and guffaws. Those who were off-shift and had been watching the news, or those who were otherwise informed of the wide-scale rioting and upheaval, took the announcement with a resigned dignity—with a few exceptions. One lady ( The quiet Lucy , Donovan thought) broke down into sobbing hysterics.
    The laughter slowly died off as people around the room finally realized that, no, Dr. Crispin had not suddenly developed a sense of humor.
    “I can’t say what this will mean for us,” Crispin said. “As far as we can tell, from the reports coming over the wireless and