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    “Thank you everyone for your cleanup efforts,” Tim announced after we’d thrown the last body into the back of the Avalanche. “Please go rest and get something to eat. Roy, Karla, Bailey, and I will take it from here.”
    I frowned when he included me in his plans. For all he knew, I was planning to leave right after this. Roy looked over at me, appreciation on his face. He must have thought I’d volunteered. By the time we finished burning the bodies, it would be too late to leave again. This stalling was becoming insidious. One day we’d look back and realize months had passed.
    I removed my gloves and got into the truck with Roy at the wheel, and we took off after Tim, who was riding in the Avalanche.
    “You guys do this often?” I asked as I massaged my elbow.
    “Usually in groups of five or so.” Roy glanced at me. “We can get you a tensor bandage for your elbow when we get back.”
    “That’d be great.”
    “Did you injure your elbow falling down the stairs too?” Roy joked.
    “Fence this time.”
    “Sure, sure,” Roy said airily. “You sure are clumsy.”
    I’d never noticed how predisposed to injuries I was until Roy pointed it out.
    “I’m not clumsy. I’m—” I thought about it. “—accident prone.”
    Roy made a disbelieving sound in response. I was about to argue my point when the school appeared in our sightlines. We followed the larger truck over the curb and into the backyard of the school. The grass was worn with tire tracks, and a burned smell, like meat that had fallen into the barbeque flames, hung in the air. The truck stopped in front of the soccer field, except they’d transformed the field into an outdoor crematorium. Various mounds of burned bodies sat in the center, ash coating the rest of the field.
    I hadn’t realized how long I’d been staring until Roy patted me on my shoulder. “Come on. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can leave this place.”
    I got out of the truck and the smell grew tenfold. Roy handed me a bandana to cover my face, and I tied it so it sat on the bridge of my nose. The fabric did reduce the smell a little.
    First, Tim found pallets to place the bodies on so they’d burn better, and then we got to work dragging the bodies into a new pile.
    Karla dragged one of the infected by its arm, and as she pulled, the limb ripped free from its decayed socket, muscles dangling like raw meat. She gagged as she picked up the severed arm and threw it onto the pile with its owner.
    The middle-aged infected I was lugging lost his wallet, so I went back to retrieve it. I flipped open the generic brown leather wallet to see the smiling faces of a family with two young children. The license said this man had once been Robin Cruthers, age thirty-four and was a registered organ donor. Carefully, I placed the wallet in the corpse’s hand, making sure it didn’t slip out. We gathered various other articles from the infected that had been scattered during our hauling efforts and tossed them onto the pile of bodies.
    The gasoline sloshed around in the canister as Tim approached the pyre. He poured a fair amount under the pallet and sprinkled the rest over the pile. The match came to life, and he tossed it at the bottom where he’d poured the most gas. Flames roared and the intensity of the heat forced us back. The fire climbed to the top of the pile like trails on a map. The rag couldn’t cover the smell anymore. I had to turn away or risk throwing up my breakfast.
    “Go wait in the car. We just got to make sure the fire catches all over, and then we can leave,” Tim said.
    I walked briskly to the truck; he didn’t have to tell me twice. The smell wasn’t as strong inside the vehicle cabin, but I was sure the smoke would eventually drift over. It wasn’t even the stench of burning meat that bothered me; it was the disgusting odor of burned, rotting meat. Roy joined me.
    “The first time we did this, I threw up,” he admitted. “You’re