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couldn’t get the back door open. No key, no way to break the lock. Lira looked at him as she shrugged back into her pack. She pointed to the steel shelves along the back wall, stocked with cleaning supplies.
    “Those will burn.”
    Mac looked at her, a slow smile breaking over his mouth. “You’re something.”
    “And I want to stay that way.” Lira grabbed a bundle of cleaning cloths and the handle of a broom tucked into a corner. After dousing them in cleaning fluid, she squared her shoulders at him, jerked her chin toward the door. “Got a light?”
    They fought.
    Knife and flame, fists and feet, Mac and Lira fought with whatever they could get their hands on. Broken fingers scrabbled at them; mouths bit. Monsters in the movies were afraid of fire, but not these. They came at Mac and Lira head-on, which only made it easier to shove the burning cloths down their throats or into their eyes, their rot-soft guts. There was no way to kill a hundred creatures hell-bent on destroying them, but all they had to do was make a path big enough to get through. They’d almost made it out the front doors of the pharmacy when one of the Resurrected hooked an arm through the loop of Lira’s pack and yanked her back.
    She was already exhausted and off-balance, and this took her right off her feet. Like a turtle on its back, she swam against the air, trying to fight off the snapping jaws in her face. It was too much, she thought, as she pushed as hard as she could against a chest gone concave with decay beneath a designer suit. This was all too much.
    Then the thing disappeared. Mac grabbed the front of her jacket and pulled her to her feet. “Run.”
    Could she run? What did she have left? Not much, not even the desire to live, really, but somehow Lira found a few more minutes of strength to follow him out the doors and into the street. She didn’t have the energy even to cry out at the sight of more of them, huddled masses of the Resurrected, with more in the distance. From far off, she thought she heard the sound of engines roaring, but she hadn’t heard anything like that in so long, it might’ve been the sound of blood rushing in her ears.
    Then all she knew was running.

 
    Chapter Three
    L IRA WOKE IN darkness so thick she couldn’t be sure she’d opened her eyes. She remembered running ahead of the swarm, Mac leading her down side streets and alleys with unerring efficiency. He took her into this building, up the broken stairs, and past barricades of furniture, into this apartment.
    She was on a bed.
    A soft bed, oh, God, compared to the thin mattresses in the synagogue basement, this was like lying on a cloud of marshmallows wrapped in cotton batting covered in memory foam. Soft, not scratchy sheets, faintly perfumed with fabric softener. Her hands traveled over her body—she was clean from what she remembered as the coldest shower she’d ever taken. She wore a cotton T-shirt and boxers, utter luxury.
    She sat up, aware of Mac’s steady breathing beside her. He’d brought her here and made sure she was taken care of. Somehow, they’d managed to escape the Resurrected and stay ahead of what he’d assured her was the slow but inexorable progress of the soldiers cleaning the streets one by one. She hadn’t asked him how he knew about this apartment, in one of the few buildings that hadn’t suffered too much damage. She’d seen the photos on the wall in the living room. This was his place.
    She hadn’t asked him, either, about the woman and little girl with him in the pictures. She could guess what had happened to them—what had happened to so many. Instead, Lira had let Mac feed her, give her a place to wash up, clothes, and a bed in which to sleep.
    Skin on skin. It had always worked for her, the release of orgasm washing away at least some of the terror and pain. Mac had given her a lot already. She could give him something, too.
    She rolled onto her side and pressed herself against his back, her hand on