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They stayed on 93 for quite some time. Eventually, the rhythm of the road put Kmart to sleep in the back. As soon as she was out, Alice turned to Carlos. “You know she likes you.”

Frowning, Carlos asked, “What?”

“She has a crush on you.”

“Kmart?” Carlos shook his head. “She’s fourteen years old.”

“Old enough. Especially now.”

“Yeah.” The convoy passed some undead shambling down the side of the highway, seemingly without aim. “You ever think we’re the freaks?”

“What do you mean?” Alice asked, even though she was fairly sure she knew.

“That we’re the anomalies, the last of the dinosaurs. We fucked up our world, and so the world fucked us back. Look at them.” He indicated the undead with his head as he drove. “This is their world now. We don’t belong here.”

Shaking her head, Alice said, “Believe that if you want, but I’m not ready to surrender to the new world order just yet.” She reached into the pocket of the door and pulled out the journal. Flipping through, she found one of the glossy articles on Arcadia, which was attached with a paper clip. Removing both article and clip, she used the latter to attach the article—with its lovely photograph of the picturesque town—to the sun visor above her.

She looked at Carlos. “There’s an end to this. I’m sure of it.”

TWENTY-FIVE

In the 1940s, Benjamin Siegel, a New York mobster who had moved to Los Angeles, decided to turn the small desert town of Las Vegas, Nevada—located in a state where gambling was legal—into the site of the greatest luxury hotel and casino the world had ever seen. The result of that dream—the Flamingo—was but the first, and by the end of the twentieth century, Las Vegas had gained a deserved reputation as a place to gamble and gambol, easily earning the nickname of Sin City.

That, however, was in the old world.

If Alice hadn’t seen the sign saying WELCOME TO LAS VEGAS, and if the odometer of the 8x8 hadn’t been one hundred fifty-five miles higher than it was after they passed the mile marker on the highway, she might not have believed the sign.

Claire’s voice sounded over the PRC and summed it up perfectly: “Oh, my God.”

Alice found herself recalling a poem she’d read in high school called Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley, about a kingdom that had been reclaimed by the desert, leaving only two legs from a statue erected to the long-dead King Ozymandias, the “king of kings.”

Aloud, she muttered a line from the poem, “Nothing beside remains.”

From behind her, Kmart asked, “Where is it?”

“Guess the desert wanted it back,” she said.

Bits of Vegas were still visible over the sand dunes: the tops of the re-created Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower, and the Sphinx outside the Luxor. Alice bitterly thought that the latter seemed a lot more appropriate now.

She shook her head. “Five years of storms and no one to hold the sand back.”

Claire said, “Let’s bring it to a stop, people.”

After the vehicles all came to a standstill, Carlos took out his binoculars and started gazing across what was left of the city.

Over the PRC, Chase asked the question on everyone’s lips. “Where are they?”

After a few more seconds, Carlos lowered the binoculars. “Nothing.”

Alice couldn’t believe it. Not a single sign of undead. That seemed impossible.

Then she saw one of those crows that had menaced the convoy flying by. She pointed at it. “Those birds must have moved through the city block by block—picked it clean.”

Carlos shuddered. Behind them, Kmart said, “Fuck.”

“Let’s move,” Claire said. “Everyone be careful.”

Slowly, the convoy moved down the sandy remains of the Strip. Dead husks of palm trees lined the center divide.

“There!” L.J. said over the radio. “The Pizza San Marco.”

“That’s Piazza,” Mikey said.

“What-the-fuck-ever, man. They got valet parking and a gas pump in there.”

Alice peered ahead and saw that the Venetian was in better shape than some—you could actually enter the hotel—though the faux canals were choked with sand, the gondolas beached and useless.