Tim tried to reach around himself, to get at his pack and his revolver. The drooler was headed right up a slot between two cars, right toward the blade of the loader. Tim had no more than a couple of seconds to react. He didn’t have time to crawl out of the dozer’s cab, he knew that much, and he couldn’t seem to get his arm around to get his pack open in the tight space.

The solution was right there in front of him, of course. The keys of the loader were still in the ignition. He could use the machine to kill the drooler and make his escape—his stupid fall, his clumsy landing on the loader’s control seat, was actually a blessing in disguise.

He just had to figure out how to make the machine work. Tim had done some landscaping and light construction work when he was a teenager. He’d worked around construction equipment and had once even been allowed to drive a backhoe—though only in circles around a parking lot that was slated for demolition anyway. If he’d had a few minutes he was sure he could figure out how to make the loader work.

He had seconds, at most. With one foot he kicked the starter of the loader and it rumbled to life. The drooler didn’t seem surprised or even curious by the throaty roar of the diesel engine. It came closer, and closer, until it could reach up and grab the blade.

“Gotcha,” Tim said, and threw the loader into gear. It stumbled forward an inch or two but no more, shuddering and vibrating so badly his vision blurred, but it didn’t go anywhere. Panicking, Tim looked down and saw that the loader’s stabilizing legs were planted firmly on the asphalt, locking it in place. The legs were there to give the loader traction when it engaged the backhoe attachment on its rear. They kept the machine from moving around dangerously while it was digging—but they also kept Tim from getting anywhere.

The drooler leapt up and got part of its torso over the blade. Tim pushed himself back in the seat, unable to think straight, unable to hear anything over the grinding noise of the machine as it shook itself violently back and forth. He reached down and started flipping switches and toggles on the control panel, but only managed to lift the blade, raising it up in the air and bringing the drooler even closer. Black spit rolled down the infected man’s shirt and splattered the cab around Tim. He started to scream—but his fingers kept working the controls madly, blindly hoping to find some way to save himself.

The drooler stood up in the blade, its curved face lifted almost perpendicular to the ground. It staggered back and forth trying to keep its balance, or maybe it was getting ready to jump down into the cab with Tim. The blade shook and the drooler almost fell off. Almost, but not quite. It did stop the sick man from jumping.

Tim forced himself to look down and study the controls. He found the lever he wanted and shoved it all the way up. The loader’s blade came down and hit the road surface hard enough to send up a cloud of dust and rubble. The drooler tottered and then fell away from Tim, disappearing in the brown cloud.

Moments later it appeared again, looking completely unhurt. It stepped forward and grabbed the top of the blade, ready to heave itself up again.

This time, though, Tim was ready. He’d managed to get his pack off and had the revolver firmly in hand. Sighting carefully, he put a bullet right through the drooler’s head. It fell down once again, for good this time.

He didn’t have time to congratulate himself. More droolers were coming up the gap between the cars, a pack of them with dead eyes and wide-open mouths.

The fear turned Tim’s hands to ice but it didn’t paralyze him, not this time. He found the control that raised the stabilizers. They folded up neatly like the legs of a spider drawing back. He found the clutch and the gearshift and threw the loader in reverse. There were a few cars behind him but they were easily pushed out of the way with a smash and a chorus of breaking glass by the mass of the construction vehicle.

The droolers kept coming on but Tim was moving, gaining speed as he rumbled backwards up the street. The loader bleated out a repetitive warning chime as it maxed out its top reverse speed at about ten miles an hour. It felt to Tim like he was stuck in molasses, barely moving at all, but when he checked on the droolers they were losing ground—they could move barely as fast as a healthy human being could walk, maybe four miles an hour, even as they struggled and grasped to get near him, to get to him and bite him and destroy him.

He backed up until they were tiny figures in the distance, far enough away that he dared to stop and get the loader turned around. Its big tires squealed on the pavement as he pulled a three-point turn, barely clipping the cars parked on either side the street, smashing in the radiator grille of one and popping the tires of another. Once he was faced the right way—east—he put the loader back into gear and headed for the highway.

It had been nearly twelve hours since Sasha had dropped him off at the dockyards. Half his time was gone.