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Maybe if it all did come to an end, there would be tours of the former FAYZ.
And here is where Dahra Baidoo starved to death by the side of the road
.

That made her start to cry again. What had she done to deserve—movement! She raised her head, and there, not twenty feet away, stood a coyote. Its head was low. Its eyes glittered in the gloom. It was bedraggled, filthy, skin and bones. Dahra knew that Brianna had played grim reaper to the coyote population, chasing them down one by one. After the terrible coyote attack on panicked kids just south of the lake Sam had made it part of Brianna’s job to eliminate the mutant canines once and for all.

But here was one who was not dead.

The coyote sniffed the air, ears cocking this way and that, on the alert for the sudden death brought by the Breeze. It was nervous, but it was more hungry.

“Go away!” Dahra yelled. “The Breeze is coming to meet me. She’ll be here any second!”

The coyote didn’t buy it. “Not here,” it said in its strangle, glottal voice. It advanced, still cautious. Saliva dripped from its muzzle.

An awful terror took Dahra then. The coyote wouldn’t just kill her; it would eat her. It would eat her alive, and she would watch it happen until blood loss deprived her of consciousness. She knew. She had heard the stories; she had seen the bloody, mangled survivors dragged into the so-called hospital to await salvation at Lana’s hands.

She began to pray.
Oh,
God,
save me. Oh,
God,
hear me and save me
.

Then, aloud, she said, “Kill me first. Kill me before you . . . before . . .”

Oh, God, don’t let him . . .

The coyote closed to within two feet. His nostrils were filling with the scent of her; his mouth was foaming in anticipation.

“No,” she whispered. “No, God, no.”

The coyote froze. Its ears swiveled to the right. It hunched low, and now Dahra could hear it, too, a slow crashing of underbrush and fallen leaves.

“Help! Help!” she cried, having no idea who or what might be in those woods, only knowing that whatever it was, the coyote didn’t like it.

The coyote made a low growl.

The crashing sound came closer, and with a furious, frustrated whine the coyote trotted away.

“Help me!” Dahra cried.

At first she couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing in the shadows. It looked like a person, but built on too thick a scale, with outlines all blurred and indistinct. Then she recognized him and almost fainted with relief.

“Orc!”

Orc easily climbed the incline up to the road, then squatted beside her.

“Dahra? What are you doing here?”

“Praying for you to show up,” she gasped.

Orc couldn’t make much of a smile; it was only the human part of his mouth that could do that. “You prayed to God? Like in the Bible?”

Dahra was about to say she would happily have prayed to any and all gods and the devil, too, but she stopped herself and instead said, “Yes, Orc. Just like in the Bible.”

“And he sent me.” This seemed to give Orc great satisfaction. His huge chest swelled. “He sent me!”

“I crashed my bike. One leg is twisted. Can you help me get to the lake?”

“Shouldn’t you go see Lana?”

“Lake first, if you don’t mind. I have an important message to deliver. I have to talk to Astrid.”

Orc nodded. “Be sure and tell her God saved you. He brought me here, just to save you. Maybe then Astrid will . . . Anyway, I can carry you.”

He lifted her up like she was a doll. He had always terrified her. He was as strange as if he was from another planet.

But she felt safe in his arms.

He chuckled to himself, giddy, as he carried her.

FOR ASTRID
IT
was another night apart from Sam. How quickly his presence had become necessary to her. Sam in her bed: an addiction that had swiftly taken hold. Fifteen years of sleeping alone now seemed like it had involved some other person entirely. Hadn’t she always had him beside her? Hadn’t she always awakened to his touch?

Astrid was trying to think. And not about Sam. But she was in the cabin she shared with Sam, and everything about the place reminded her of him.

She was also not trying to think about the fact that Drake’s head was in a cooler twenty feet below her at the bottom of the lake.

Heavy tread on the dock, followed by someone large and very heavy stepping onto the boat. Astrid snatched up her shotgun and headed out. One of Edilio’s guards should have challenged the intruder. She heard the sound of someone peeing—that would be the guard.

With shotgun leveled Astrid went the length of the passageway, then carefully climbed the steps out onto the deck. She found her sights aiming at Dahra Baidoo, improbably in the arms of Orc.

“Don’t shoot,” Dahra said through gritted teeth.

“God sent me to save her!” Orc blurted.

“What happened to you?” Astrid asked, setting her gun aside and helping Orc lower Dahra onto the padded bench.

“I was coming to see you, riding my bike,” Dahra said. “Twisted ankle.”

“Your ankle is three times its normal size,” Astrid observed.

“Yes, Astrid, I noticed that,” Dahra said. Sarcasm was not usually in Dahra’s repertoire, but Astrid could hardly blame her.

“What can I do to help you?”

“Get me to Lana as soon as I tell you what I came here to tell you,” Dahra said.

“Maybe I can have you driven down,” Astrid said, wondering if this was enough of a justification for using some of their dwindling gas supply. If so, she’d have to make the trip useful in some other way as well. Maybe she could go to Perdido Beach . . . see if Sam was around . . .

“What is it you have to tell me?” Astrid asked.

“Food,” Dahra said. “First, something to eat.”

“Well, since you’re injured, I can give you a Cup-a-Noodles. I guess you can each have one.”

Heating the water for the noodles—there was a small hibachi on deck and a few dry twigs—took some time, and while the water was heating Dahra relented and told her tale.

“Sam’s mother, Connie Temple, I ran into her at the barrier. She wants to talk to you.”

“To me?” Astrid frowned. Was this about her relationship with Sam?

“She says things are getting very nasty outside. Out in the world. And she’s right, by the way. I saw a sign that said ‘Kill Them All, Let God Sort Them Out.’”

“That is not Christian,” Orc huffed.

“No, it isn’t,” Astrid said dryly.

“I guess Nurse Temple wanted someone to talk to about it. Sam was gone, Edilio is busy, so it was you, Astrid.”

“Third choice?”

Dahra shrugged, but the motion made her wince. “She’ll meet you at the barrier. Probably thought it would be earlier, sorry, slightly delayed.” She was talking through gasps of pain. “Tomorrow maybe, right? You’ll need paper or something. You know, to communicate.”

Astrid thought about it. “Thanks, Dahra. And thank you, Orc.”

“It wasn’t me,” he said solemnly, and pointed one thick finger upward. “Maybe he has a use for me. You know? Like a plan.”

Astrid smiled at him. “You have become one of the good guys, Orc. If there was ever an example of redemption, it’s you.”

She hesitated only a moment out of fear of touching him, but then gave him a hug. How strange he felt. How alien.

Orc seemed too overcome to say anything. Which was nice, Astrid thought as she drew back, but her thoughts moved quickly on to what she and Sam had been calling the endgame. It wasn’t enough to survive a war: you had to plan for the aftermath.

She was pleased Connie Temple was reaching out to her. Getting ready for the aftermath was possibly the most important thing left to do. It was something Astrid could handle very well, she thought.

Gaia was singing. She wasn’t singing well—her voice was thin and reedy and she had no experience of music—but with the earbuds in she was singing.

She was singing “Mainlining Murder” by Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards.

“Great playlist you’ve got there, Mr. Alex,” Diana said.

They were just beyond a low hill, very near the lake. They had a small twig-and-branch fire going, lit easily by Gaia. Diana had suggested it, hoping the light would be seen from the lake. Hoping that Sam was even now planning a surprise attack that would end this.

Gaia was staring into that fire and singing: “Mainlining Murder” followed incongruously by “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” If she was at all concerned by the proximity of the lake settlement, she showed no sign of it.

“Is that the Miley Cyrus version or the original Cyndi Lauper?” Diana asked Alex. He didn’t seem to know. He was not in a talkative mood; at least, he was not talking to her. He muttered unintelligibly sometimes, and had taken to mumbling, “Melted, man. Melted.” Whatever that meant in crazy town, where Alex had apparently taken up residence.

Diana was hoping he would pass out or fall asleep. She didn’t trust him: he could easily rat her out to curry favor with Gaia.

Diana had seen people break before, just collapse, lose it. But never this quickly. Was he already a mess before he ventured into this particular level of hell? Was he already fragile? Or was it that he was an adult?

She pondered this for a moment. People always said kids were resilient, so obviously adults were less so. She wondered how much differently things would have gone if it had been three-hundred-plus adults trapped in the FAYZ with the gaiaphage and dangerous mutants—human and nonhuman.

But now she was stalling. She had to act before Gaia could. She was convinced Gaia was just waiting to attack until the sky was completely dark, and it was dark.

Enough. Time was up.

Time to die, most likely.

Oh, well. Bad decisions. My secret power: bad decisions.

“I have to go pee,” Diana said through a tense, clenched jaw. She heaved herself up, knees popping, muscles aching, and scabs stretching with the effort.

Gaia didn’t even glance up, and Diana realized her eyes were closed. Somehow she looked less . . . well, evil, with her eyes closed. She could almost be asleep except for the fact that she was back to singing about murder. Or rapping, maybe.

Diana walked away with all the nonchalance she could manage. She was stiff-legged, but she was always stiff now. Nothing new.

Gaia didn’t seem to even notice, and Diana was most afraid Alex would take this as a sign that he, too, could walk away. That would ruin everything. But the man was busy pretending to enjoy Gaia’s singing, obviously in the ridiculous belief that Gaia would like him. And muttering, “Melting, melting.”

Poor one-armed fool,
Diana thought.
Pray Gaia doesn’t get hungry again. Or bored. Or just wants to see you scream
.

They were in an area of low, rolling hills. Boulders jabbed up out of the hard dirt. Desiccated grass edged up to small stands of nearly dead, stunted trees. Diana knew the area: Sinder’s garden was just over the hill. The lake was not a quarter mile away.

As soon as she was out of sight she started to run. The moon—the actual moon, not the simulation they’d seen back in the old days—had just risen, and its light was faint. She stumbled, tripped, but kept running. It hurt each time she fell, but Diana had endured worse, far worse. And she ran now hoping, believing, that Sam and Dekka and Brianna and maybe enough force to fight off Gaia were just over the next hill.

Sam liked her; he’d been kind to her; he could save her. She had to believe that. Absent Caine to play knight in shining armor, Sam could save her.

She heard her own feet on sand. She heard her own gasping breath. She felt the heart pounding in her chest. Running brought hope, and hope was a cruel trick, but she ran anyway.

She spotted a human silhouette and ran to it.

“Hey, who’s there?” a young voice cried out.

“It’s Diana,” she said, not yelling, but urgent. “Keep it down!”

“Show me who you are!”

She forced herself to slow—not much point in getting shot by her rescuers—and waited until the boy recognized her. She did not recognize him, but she’d never made a lot of friends at the lake.

“Listen, kid, do you have some way to sound an alarm?”

“What?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me!” she snapped. “Do you have a way to sound an alarm?”

“I’m supposed to fire in the air.”

“No, she’ll hear that. Come on, let’s run! Run!”

Her fear was contagious, and the nameless boy set off after her, his automatic rifle banging against his back. Ahead were the lights of the lake, just a few pitiful candles, a few faintly illuminated trailer windows and boat portholes.

“What’s happening?” the boy asked, breathless behind her.

“The devil’s on her way,” Diana said. She glanced back: still no pursuit. Of course when Gaia came she’d be a whirlwind with Brianna’s speed. Diana wouldn’t even have a warning.

She pelted into the settlement, which was a dozen or so trailers and motor homes, some bedraggled tents, a few boats at the dock, and a few more boats anchored out in the water.

Diana had lived here for a while; she knew her way around. She ran onto the houseboat and yelled, “Sam! Sam!”

Silence.

“Sam’s gone,” the out-of-breath guard said.

“What?”

“He’s gone to Perdido Beach.”

Diana felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. Without Sam there was zero chance of beating Gaia.

Ah, hope: you tricked me again
.

Dekka came running down the dock. “What’s going on?”

“Dekka! Thank God. Gaia is just over the hill. Listen to me: she’s going to kill everyone.”

Dekka stared. Diana thought it was as close as she’d ever come to looking truly frightened. Then to the guard, Dekka said, “Get Jack. Right now!”

“Who else is here?” Diana demanded.

“That can do any damage in a fight? Me and Jack. Breeze may have come back. Breeze! Breeze! If you’re down there, wake up!” Nothing. “She may be asleep down below, but she went out on patrol earlier, I think. Breeze!”

Someone very large was climbing up from below, and Diana was relieved to see the mudslide that was Orc’s head.