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smoothly, directing application of water like an experienced fire chief. Wes leapt out of the cart to join him, and Hal followed suit. Stiles remained seated in the cart, nursing his wounded leg.
    “What’s it look like, Sheriff?” Wes asked.
    “The worst’s over, Wes,” replied the Sheriff. “We’re down to ashes and an occasional flare-up. Gonna have to overhaul the insulation in the walls, make sure all the smoldering is out. God damn that idiot who left those cleaning supplies by Herman.”
    “Herman?” asked Hal, managing to bite back a laugh. “The guy who did this is named Herman ?”
    “Don’t laugh,” Keaton said, narrowing his eyes. “Herman Lutz is a complete sociopath, and a goddamn smart one, too. Sherman helped us bring him down, but we got him alive and were keeping him here, at the clinic. He was pretty badly hurt, but he was improving. As far as we can tell, he got a hold of some chemicals and built himself a bomb. Blew the goddamned wall right off the back end of the clinic. His bed’s empty. All in all, he managed a great escape. We tracked him a little. Looks like he headed east.”
    “Aren’t you going to go after him?”
    “Why? He’s only one person, and now we’re watching for him. It’d be suicide for him to try and come back here. Good riddance to him—wherever he is, I hope he rots there.”
    The sounds of crackling wood and the smell of scorched tiling were all that filled the air for a long moment. No one spoke. Hal looked off to the east, where Herman Lutz had disappeared, and sighed.
    A voice broke the silence. From the passenger side of the cart, Stiles raised a hand. “Say, uh, hate to interrupt . . . but would now be a good time to ask for that crutch?”

Omaha, NE
26 June 2007
1120 hrs_
    I T TURNED OUT TO be a beautiful day, with the temperature pleasant, and a soft breeze serving to whisk away what little sweat those enjoying the outdoors might have felt. Missing, however, were the hallmarks of any major city. Not a single engine could be heard for miles. Abandoned vehicles lay about, some parked neatly, others smashed against telephone poles or turned up on their sides in ditches, sitting cockeyed in storefront windows or blocking intersections, silent and still.
    Glass shards littered overgrown lawns, and halfway-boarded-up windows hinted at last stands. Even the birds seemed loath to venture into the city, their chirps distant and muted, almost apprehensive. Only two figures still lived and breathed in the streets of Omaha, but they were as still as the tomblike buildings around them.
    Ewan Brewster and Trevor Westscott might as well have been statues.
    The pair of survivors were kneeling behind a concrete stoop on the outskirts of the city, hugging their weapons close. Brewster’s double-barreled shotgun hung across his lap, and Trev’s snap-out baton was held close to his chest. He tapped it rhythmically against his shoulder in perfect time to the sound of the infected’s breathing.
    Both men wore rugged hiking packs stuffed to the brim with recently scavenged food and several bottles of prescription medications. They were trying to get back to their home base, but trouble had come their way in the form of an older man with bloodshot eyes who had burst out of his apartment building as the two began to walk past. Brewster and Trev had immediately dived for cover, and, owing to luck more than anything else, the man hadn’t seen them.
    That was only half a blessing, however. The man definitely knew they were there. He just didn’t seem to know where. He grunted, flicking his head this way and that, drooled blood and spittle pooling at his feet on the top step of his building. His body twitched spasmodically as he stood there, motions seemingly beyond conscious control. In fact, they seemed to annoy him: every time a shoulder or arm twitched, he would glance at the offending limb with the same predatory flash in his eyes that a young, curious housecat gets when