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of this small, desolate refuge. Sliding off her worn backpack, Alicia opened it and fished out her notebook and two pencils—the most recent presents Rafael had given her. She sat with her back against the tree, opened the notebook, and found the next free page, which was between a drawing of Kimberly and one of them— the monsters that haunted her dreams. Touching lead to paper, little Alicia took herself to another world.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER THREE
     
    Stryker City was peaceful from high above. All the dead looked like ants swarming instead of ravenous corpses seeking their next warm meal. Trevor took the group over the police station, pointed out that was where the marines’ last stand had taken place, and then led them toward the Stryker International.
    As the Huey descended, Mark Goodman glanced to each of the stains on the runway. There were so many that, from above, they took the form of a Rorschach inkblot test. He closed his eyes, and Mark saw his family running from the dead and the fiery explosion that had ended their existence in the blink of an eye. Though he couldn’t say for sure that his family had been vaporized by the nuclear blast that hit Chicago, he found it hard not to believe so. Hillside wasn’t that far away from the city. Even still, if they’d managed to survive the initial blast, assuming the dead hadn’t already torn them apart, they would surely have—
    He blinked and turned away from the runway, away from that train of thought. Survival meant staying on top of your shit, and that’ s exactly why he was still alive. Too many times he had seen people die out here because they couldn’t just let go. Not that he was fond of that idea; it was just a hard truth that very few could accept. Lowering his head, he thanked his lucky stars that he’d spent that summer with his uncle in Stryker City.
    “You okay, kid?”
    Mark looked up to see Jonathan watching him with a curious glare.
    “I’m fine,” he answered, glancing out the window once more. “Just haven’t been out here since… you know.”
    Jonathan smiled. “Not many of us have.”
    Trevor, with light glinting off his aviators, turned to the mechanic. “Let’s hope this is the last time we have to be out here for a while, huh?”
    “I hear that,” Jared said from beside Mark.
     
    ***
     
    Short ly after the helicopter had left, Kimberly found Alicia and initiated their favorite game: hide-and-seek. Most of the adults and children were at the dining hall by now. The yard was theirs for the taking; they would be able to hide almost everywhere. Big sis was very good at hiding and Alicia had been looking for her for ten minutes. They only had two rules: Don’t go past the slums, and never go on the wall.
    Trotting past the deer pens and smiling at Robin, Alicia slowed her pace as she came up on the first home. Many of them were now vacant, their residents succumbing to death in one manner or another. These were the best places to hide; some of th em were even propped up so that, if you were small enough, you could climb underneath and get even more of a head start on the person searching for you.
    “Gotcha,” said Alicia as she ripped open the cut tarp serving as the entrance. A frown played on her face as she found the little place bereft of life. “I’ll find you, sissy.”
     
    ***
    “Get your asses in gear,” Trevor said as the Huey touched ground. “There’s no telling if there are any Zacks hiding out in one of those hangars.”
    Jared flipped off the safety on his carbine and stepped out behind Mark. The propellers’ winding nearly caused his hat to fly off; he grabbed it with his free hand and jogged over to the refueling truck which was sitting on all flat tires and appearing as if it were on its last leg. He noted several piles of corpses that were so far into decay they reminded him of mummies he’d seen in movies and books before the rising of the dead.
    He eyed the three