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But all they saw were more zomboids. The convoy had been as many as sixty people at one point, but every time they came up against some zomboids, they lost someone—or several someones. Occasionally, they’d pick up new people—the last hospital they’d raided, in Bakersfield, also had a paramedic and a med tech still alive, and they’d joined up.

The zomboids weren’t the only danger. Having an ambulance was all well and good, but they didn’t have any doctors. The paramedic and the med tech were handy in a pinch, but they were recent additions, and Emilio, the med tech, had died soon after joining. Carlos had field medic training, but that also wasn’t particularly helpful when someone needed surgery.

Like Lyndon.

Lyndon Barry was a good, kind soul who’d been the camera operator for Denver’s KT3. He worked alongside a reporter named Heidi Ellis and a driver named Ross Vincent. They’d been driving all over Denver, reporting on what was going on. When KT3 stopped broadcasting, they put their stories online for as long as they could.

By the time the convoy found them, they were in Boulder, being overrun by some zomboids. Carlos and L.J. had made quick work of their attackers—they’d had more experience killing these things than anyone else in the group—but not before one bit Heidi. They didn’t know that until she died and went zomboid on them, biting Ross and infecting him as well.

Claire herself shot both of them in the head.

Lyndon hadn’t let any of it get to him, remarkably enough. He’d watched the world fall apart around him, dutifully recording it for whatever posterity was left. He’d stood and watched as his best friends and colleagues turned into zomboids, and still he was always ready with a joke or a cheery word.

Truly, Claire had envied him that talent.

Then, one day, they were going through a ramshackle old house that had some canned food and old ammunition in the basement, and one of the ceiling supports came crashing down right on Lyndon’s leg.

They all did the best they could for him, but nobody had the skill actually to fix his leg or even keep the wound clean. No one in the convoy had had a proper shower in years, and there was simply no way even to approach antiseptic conditions. Eventually, Lyndon got gangrene.

This was the world they all lived in now, when a sweet, cheerful man could die of a broken leg.

Depressed, Claire reached for her pack of cigarettes.

The pack collapsed in her grip, empty.

“Dammit!”

She looked into the rearview to see Kmart applying makeup for whatever stupid reason. “Have you been smoking my cigarettes?”

Claire had no idea what the girl’s real name was. When they had found her in the Kmart in Athens, Georgia, she had refused to provide her name, saying she’d never liked it anyhow, and the people who gave it to her were dead. L.J. started calling her Kmart, and she took to it.

The fourteen-year-old wore electrical wire on her left wrist as bracelets. Otto had called it “apocalypse chic.” She had liberated the entire makeup supply of the Kmart where they’d found her and still insisted on using it every day, even though her face, like everyone else’s, was filthy.

“I don’t smoke,” Kmart said, not bothering to look up from applying eye shadow.

“Well, don’t start,” Claire said, crumpling the pack into a tiny ball. “Don’t need the competition. Carlos is bad enough.”

She flung the pack out the window, then grabbed the Army-issue PRC that came with the Hummer. All the convoy vehicles were equipped with them. Radio had become the communications medium of choice, since telephones depended on either wires or satellite towers, which were not reliable anymore.

If nothing else, she could make sure that Carlos was still there. “Carlos, this is Claire—got any smokes?”

Carlos Olivera had a pleasant, reassuring voice. It had enabled him to do well in the Air Force, before he resigned his commission to join the Umbrella Corporation, and it had enabled him to be a strong team leader in Umbrella’s Security Division. Carlos had been one of the first people to tell the truth about what