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warning seriously. They’d already destroyed most of the world. What were a few more people?
    What was even scarier was the bit about sending people into the downtown core. They were rounding up the survivors. And Mason was positive there were some scared, exhausted, and confused people who would willingly walk into their trap. It was a clever ruse, offering help and salvation to those still alive despite all the odds. What were the Baggers planning?
    He figured in the next few days he’d have to go down and check it out for himself.
    *   *   *
    Half an hour later Mason pulled the bike over to the side of the road and killed the engine. They were parked in front of a two-story house in the middle of what once might have been a nice neighborhood. The street was quiet and lined with skeletal trees with leaves rotting on the grass beneath them.
    Mason glanced down the road, checking for signs of life. It was hard to believe no one lived here. On any other day, he could picture people. Teenagers grudgingly raking up leaves or doing some other sort of weekend chore. People would be out talking to their neighbors or cleaning the debris out of the gutters. Mothers might be chasing after their children or pushing babies in strollers. Others might be taking the family dogs for walks or getting ready to do some grocery shopping.
    But this street was dead. No amount of wishing could change the eerie empty feeling that curled along the base of his spine as he climbed off the bike and put the kickstand in place.
    Aries wasn’t paying attention to the street; her attentionwas set on the house in front of them. It was a split-level house with a wrought-iron fence around the front. There was no car in the driveway.
    “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “You don’t have to.”
    “Yes, I do,” she said. “I should have done this ages ago. But I couldn’t bring myself to. And time just kind of flew by. But now I have no excuse. I’m here. Might as well go in.”
    They left their helmets on the bike and walked toward the gate, which squeaked when Mason pulled it open. Their feet echoed on the concrete as they moved along the path toward the door. He could feel the waves of stress pouring off Aries’s back. He wondered if he would have felt the same way if he was back at his own house in Saskatoon. But that wouldn’t happen in a million years. He’d burned the house down before he left so many weeks ago. Part of him was glad he’d done it. At least now he’d never have a reason to go back.
    You can’t ever go back. Never again.
    Aries had a key chain with a little stuffed toy of a dog with buttons for eyes. She had pulled it out of her pocket before realizing she wouldn’t need it. The front door was open a few inches. Both of them raised the police batons they now carried wherever they went. Michael and he had taken them from some dead cops they’d found sitting in a car in Kitsilano. They’d been searching for guns, but those were long gone. At least batons were easier to carry than baseball bats. It was a shame they hadn’t found enough for everyone to use.
    Good weapons were hard to find. It seemed that someone had already claimed all the guns.
    “They’ve been here, haven’t they?” she asked, referring to the fact that the Baggers had been doing house-to-house searches. Aries herself had witnessed the results when she andher friends hid in a garage in the early days of the change and watched as the Baggers forcibly removed people from their homes, killing them in the streets.
    “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. It’s pretty clean. I don’t see any blood. But that doesn’t mean anything, right? It’s been raining lots.”
    Her shoulders hunched forward and he instantly realized he’d said the wrong thing. Up until that moment, she’d still had hope that she’d come home and find her parents waiting for her. There would be hugs and tears and things would return to the way they were