All the messages were from Buzzard, and none was more than a few seconds long:

“Just wanted to know if you were okay. Call me.”

“It’s been a while, just wanted to hear if there was any news.”

“Sasha says if you want, she can come back early. Call me.”

Tim plugged in his phone charger and let them play on speaker while he closed his eyes and took a three-minute cat nap. When the voicemail system’s robotic voice said, “End of Messages. You have… no saved messages,” he clicked the phone shut.

It surprised him that the cell phone network was still operational. He’d known the city had power but he would have expected the local providers to shut down their systems during the evacuation. He supposed that Horne might have reactivated them—it would make it easier for his troops to stay in touch while they moved around an area as big as the city if they could use their cell phones—but he hadn’t seen or heard any sign that Horne’s child soldiers ever went into the city at all, much less carried out coordinated activities there.

Maybe the Colonel kept the network up just in case. Tim didn’t suppose it mattered. He picked up the phone again, paged through his call log and found Buzzard’s number. He wondered what he would say to the reporter, other than to tell him he was still alive, or that he’d seen some droolers and killed as many as he could.

Sitting there on the floor of the gardening store he thought about that for the first time, really. He had killed the droolers back there in the smoke, and before that he’d killed some near the baseball stadium. He had acted in self-defense, of course, every time. Well, maybe all but once.

He thought of the woman he’d clubbed to death with his baseball bat. Once he started thinking about her he couldn’t stop. She’d been Karen’s age. He wondered if she’d had kids before she got infected. He wondered who had bitten her, and infected her—was her husband out there, dreaming of revenge against that one particular drooler, the only one that mattered? If that hypothetical husband could know what Tim had done, how would he feel? Would he add Tim to the list of people he wanted to kill?

“Buzzard,” the phone said when Tim dialed the number.

“It’s me. I’m still alive.”

“I was beginning to work up toward having my doubts,” the reporter told him. “It’s good to hear your voice, Kempfer. Are you done yet? On your way back?”

“No,” Tim admitted. “I ran into some trouble on the way.”

Buzzard half-grunted, half-laughed in reply. “You don’t say.”

“There were some—some infected people, they—”

“You mean the ones at the baseball stadium?” Buzzard asked.

Tim’s eyes went wide.

“You wondering how I know about that? Yeah, I guess you are. Horne told me, guy. There’s something I got to tell you about. I tried plenty of times but you never picked up.”

Tim bit his lip before replying. “I just got your messages. But hold up—Horne knows I’m here? I thought you were going to cover for me.”

He could hear the resignation in Buzzard’s voice. “I did my best, kid. Didn’t make a lick of difference. Horne tumbled you himself. He said he’s got eyes and ears all over the Emerald City. Wouldn’t give me details but he said apparently you set off some kind of alarm down by the docks. He got a satellite image of that area and saw droolers milling around in the street. It didn’t take a nuclear physicist to figure out somebody had ‘em riled up, and even Horne was smart enough to figure that had to mean you. He came down on Camp Romeo like a plague from the Bible and now we’re all under camp arrest. Which means we got soldiers watching everything we do.”

“Jesus. I’m sorry, Buzzard.”

The reporter took a long time replying. “That’s alright, don’t sweat it. Listen, I just wanted you to know what’s going on. So you know to be careful—Horne’s promised he’ll eventually track you down, and I don’t put it past him to send somebody to find you up there. For whatever reason he’s dead set on keeping you from killing yourself—or anybody else for that matter, drooler or otherwise. I know that complicates things for you.”

“Yeah,” Tim said. He saw the woman’s face, the dent in her forehead again. “Yeah, this is already tougher than I thought it was going to be. Buzzard—do you think I’m crazy for doing this?”

“Absolutely,” the reporter told him.

Tim laughed. “Okay, maybe I have a death wish. But you understand why I’m here. Don’t you? You know why I’ve got to kill Nero.”

“I think it makes a good story.”

Tim started to interrupt but Buzzard stopped him.

“Don’t take that the wrong way. Stories are important. Yours is the one thing keeping you going, right? ‘Once there was a man who loved his wife and child so much he went to hell to avenge their death.’ If you didn’t have that—if you couldn’t tell yourself you were working towards some kind of happy ending, what would you do? Blow your own brains out? Curl up in bed like my buddy Duncan and just never get up? No, I don’t think you’re crazy, not really. I think you found a way to stay sane and you got to see it through. That enough for you?”

“Thanks, Buzzard,” Tim said, and started to hang up. Then, almost as an afterthought he said, “Wait—there’s somebody—there’s a survivor, at least one, in here.”

“Yeah?” Buzzard asked.

“Her name is Sandi Carron. She’s just south of the I-90 overpass, near where it crosses I-5. Can you find some way to tell Horne about her? So he can send a helicopter?” Jesus, Tim thought. He’d almost forgot. How deep inside his own ego was he, that he’d almost forgot?

“I’ll find a way,” Buzzard said. “Wow. If they pick her up, if they save her—that’ll make you a hero, buddy.”

“Yeah. Sure,” Tim said, and clicked the phone shut.