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“How would you know that?” Chase asked.

Having no trouble visualizing L.J.’s shrug, Alice heard him say, “Dropped two g’s here back in the day.”

Chase’s appreciative whistle sounded bizarre over the PRC speaker. “Two grand—Mr. High Roller.”

“Kiss my ass, cowboy.”

Alice turned to Carlos. “You know, it brings a sense of order to the world. Everything may have gone to shit, but at least L.J.’s still L.J.”

“I heard that, Abernathy. You’ll get yours, girl, you feel me?”

Grabbing the radio, Alice said, “Not in your wildest dreams, L.J.”

“Everybody, stop!”

Carlos slammed his foot on the brake at Claire’s sudden order, and Alice lurched forward, the seat belt biting into her ribs.

Alice hopped out of the 8x8, Carlos right behind her, and ran past the Hummer. Claire had already gotten out, and Alice followed her gaze to the massive metal freight container blocking their path.

“We have to move it,” Alice said.

Claire shot her a no shit look, then turned to Chase, who was just sticking his head out of the Enco tanker. “Chase, I want a lookout.” She looked over to the side of the road—they were right by the Eiffel Tower. “Up there.”

Alice couldn’t help but smile at the crestfallen look on Chase’s face as he stared up at the imposing height of the re-created Eiffel Tower. “Great.”

“Could be worse,” Alice said. “This one’s shorter than the one in Paris.”

“Rather be at the one in Paris right now,” he muttered, then headed over to it.

The 8x8, the tanker, and the news truck all had winches in the front, and they quickly pulled all three vehicles up to the container. It would take all three to move this thing. In fact, Alice wasn’t a hundred-percent sure the three would be sufficient, but the ambulance and the Hummer didn’t have winches. While Alice pulled out the 8x8’s hook, Claire started unspooling the cable on the news truck, with Carlos taking the tanker.

“Damn!”

Alice looked up to see Chase about halfway up the tower, shaking his hand back and forth. The metal was probably hot to the touch. After a second, he kept going.

The three of them walked up to the container, a very unsteady L.J. behind them, with his Beretta ready. Behind L.J. were the other surviving adult members of the convoy: Morgan, Dorian, Cliff, Peter-Michael, Pablo, Erica, and Joel. They were all armed and ready, too.

With Claire, Alice checked the front of the container, but there was no sign of a handle or lock or anything. It was as if it was a sealed box. “No lock, no way to open it,” she said to Claire.

“Good,” Claire said emphatically. From the sounds of it, she didn’t want to know what was in it. “Now, let’s get this done.”

Just as Claire turned to hook up the winch, Alice heard a noise. Based on the way she suddenly stopped, Claire heard it, too.

She and Claire exchanged glances, then Alice put her ear to the container. It definitely sounded as if something was hitting the container from the inside.

Then she ducked as she heard an explosive noise. Looking up, she saw that it was a bolt flying off the front of the container, quickly followed by several more doing the same.

“Get back!” Alice cried, just as the front of the container fell forward onto the sandy Strip. She and Claire barely avoided being smashed by the front as it crashed to the ground.

For a second, there was silence. The inside of the container appeared dark.

Then all hell broke loose.

Ever since she saw her first undead in the Hive a lifetime ago, Alice had known that there were rules about them that they always followed. One was that they were incredibly slow. Indeed, the living’s greatest advantage had always been speed. Powered only by electrical impulses being fed to dead tissue, there were limits on how fast they could ambulate.

No longer.

More than thirty undead poured out from the container, and they were moving at speeds Alice could barely keep up with, much less the others.

Alice and Claire were closest, and one leapt right at them. Without hesitating, Alice blew it away with her sawed-off. She’d hoped to hit the head, but it moved faster than anticipated,