They swung around the tip of Point Defiance, a spur of Tacoma that reached out deep into the water, and then right ahead of them was Vashon Island, a broad mound of trees and expensive houses that stood out in the Sound not a mile from Seattle. No lights burned on the island but Sasha didn’t seem to need any navigational aids. She sped them right up the narrow channel between Vashon and Maury Islands and into a protected harbor there, then cut her engine and drove her tiny craft right up onto a rocky beach on sheer momentum. Pebbles hissed and clattered against the bottom of the hull and then they were stopped, Tim’s nerves still thrumming with the engine’s vibration.

“Both of you, help me with this, cool?” Sasha asked, jumping out onto the shore. She wore spotless Timberland boots and a pair of jeans that looked like they’d been tailored for her long legs. Tim and Buzzard both grabbed onto the boat’s wooden side and strained to pull it farther up out of the water. “That Army dude sends helicopters up here sometimes,” she explained. “We try to be a little discrete.” A pile of green pine branches lay a hundred feet away from where she’d landed and the three of them carried armfuls to cover the boat from prying airborne eyes. The end result of their camouflage looked pretty obvious to Tim but he supposed that from the air it would fool a casual eye.

“I guess Horne would take you out pretty quick if he knew you were here,” Tim suggested, trying to find a common enemy with the woman.

His suggestion just made her laugh, though. “Yeah, I suppose he might, if he ever dragged his lazy ass up all this way himself.” She shrugged. “Most of his soldiers, though, have got reason to turn a blind eye away, seeing as how they’re our best customers.”

Buzzard looked shocked. “You’ve been supplying them, too?” he asked.

“Don’t feel so bad, old man.” She grabbed Buzzard’s left bicep and squeezed. “It’s just business, and to be sure, I’d rather trade with you hippies, believe me. Every deal we make with the soldier boys is all cloak and dagger shit, we got to meet with them some place neutral that’s hard to get to, they search us for guns before they even say hello, who needs it. With you guys it’s more chill.” She started up the beach at a brisk pace and the two of them rushed to keep up. “Now enough squawking, alright? Vashon’s pretty well cleared off but I need to pay attention or we could all get eaten before we even get back to the clubhouse.” She drew a revolver from her belt and held it at her side with the barrel pointing at the ground as she walked.

“You’re worried about the infected?” Tim asked.

“I’m not carrying enough heat for mountain lions,” she told him, with a warm smile. “Now keep it down.”

She lead them up the shore a bit, then turned to enter a stand of pine trees that sighed endlessly in a breeze off the water. Between the trees it was almost pitch black but she didn’t slow down, her feet easily finding a track that was invisible to Tim. Clearly she’d been this way before.

They crossed the back yard of a timber-framed house with no lights on. Tim got a good look in through one of the windows and saw dust piled on the floor an inch thick. The furniture was shaggy with it. A few dead houseplants stood next to the window. Somehow the emptiness of the room, its complete abandonment, made it creepier than if it had been splashed with blood and entrails.

He felt weird staring in through the window. In the time before the virus he would never have done such a thing—it would have been rude. Yet there was a certain fascination to it as well. He could understand what motivated the looters, he thought. Suddenly he wanted to go into every house on the island and see what secrets it contained. There was no time for that, of course. He wasn’t here to join them.

He looked up and saw that Sasha and Buzzard had gotten a fair piece ahead of him—maybe fifty yards. He turned to run and catch up when a hand came down on his shoulder.

“Shit,” he screamed, half expecting to whirl around and find one of Sasha’s fellow looters behind him. Knowing he didn’t dare take the chance. He ducked low and kicked out behind him, his foot connecting solidly with a human frame. Not even looking back he ran into the woods, desperate to get away. He tried to look over his shoulder but in the dark he couldn’t see much.

There—was that—he thought maybe, behind him there was—

The side of Tim’s face collided with a tree trunk, scraping his cheek badly. His skull hit the wood with a noise like a bongo drum being struck and his brain stopped working for a second while stars shot all through his vision. He must have hit a nerve, too, because a jangling electric pain ran all the way down his left arm to his fingertips.

Stunned and feeling very stupid, he looked around and found himself sitting on a pile of pine needles, looking up at the branches of a very tall tree. He grabbed the bark and started hauling himself up and then he saw the drooler still coming towards him.

It was taking its time, one foot in front of the other. It was naked, a naked woman with no hair and with dark sores all over her skin. Black drool dripped from her breasts and spattered her thighs.

Tim wanted to throw up. More than that, he wanted to get away. He eased himself around the tree trunk and tried to look for the best direction to run. He could see a patch of starlight to his left and he dashed that way, hoping he wouldn’t hit another tree or trip over a bush or break his leg by stepping in a hole. He was unarmed—there was nothing he could do but run.

Pushing through the trees, his arms up to protect his face from the lower branches, he shouted Sasha’s name, Buzzard’s name. He would have shouted for Horne if he thought the Colonel could hear him. He hit a wet branch that doused him in cold rain water, then broke out into an open patch of ground covered in nothing but overgrown grass. He spun around, knowing that even if he’d outrun the female drooler there might be others nearby.

He was not wrong. Three of them. One came toward him from the right, crawling out of a pile of plastic trash cans. He seemed to have gotten stuck in them somehow. The other two stumbled down from the porch of an Arts and Crafts house straight ahead.

“Shit,” he said. His breath was ragged with exertion and his feet hurt from running on broken ground. He was lost in drooler territory. He was still faster than they were but he couldn’t see them all in the dark, whereas they could smell him just fine. He had to think, had to come up with some kind of plan—

Then Sasha came running onto the patch of grass, a pistol in her hand. She shot the first drooler, the one in the trash cans, right through the temple, blowing a jet of diseased brain matter right out of his ear. Sliding to a stop on the wet grass she spun around and fired five more shots into the two on the porch even as they came staggering towards Tim. One of them went down with a bullet through his left eye. The other took three rounds in his knees and crashed forward like a tree coming down in the forest. He kept trying to crawl towards Tim, pulling himself along with his hands, so she shot again, blowing out the back of his head.

Tim tried to catch his breath. He raised his hands to try to thank her, to tell her he was alright. She tossed something toward him, shouting, “Behind you!”

He managed to catch the thing she’d thrown—a pistol, heavy, metallic. He looked down just long enough to see it was a revolver and to cock the hammer. Then he spun around and saw the naked female drooler coming out of the woods behind him. He fired all six rounds in the gun at her, one after the other, not taking a moment to think about what he was doing. Eventually she fell down and stopped moving.

Sasha came up behind him. He turned to face her and saw Buzzard crashing through the trash cans on the right. The reporter must have stepped in something nasty—take your pick, Tim thought—because he danced over the last of the cans grunting in disgust. When he’d joined them Sasha looked from one man to the other.

“No merit badges for either of you motherfuckers,” she said. “We’re going to move fast now and you better keep up because that’s the last time I’m coming back for you.” She stared down at Tim’s hands. “If you don’t mind?” she asked.

He looked down and saw he was still holding the smoking revolver. “Oh, sure,” he said, and gave it back to her. Then she turned and lead them back toward the path.