Dog Blood

marks?”
    Two circles have been drawn on the map, both centered on the main part of town. Both my apartment and Lizzie’s sister’s house are just outside the outermost circle. Preston explains.
    “Like Ankin said, the Unchanged have withdrawn into city centers. Our information’s a couple of weeks old, but we think the first circle is the extent of their occupation.”
    “What about the second line?”
    “The outermost edge of their exclusion zone. It’s a strip of empty land smack between them and everything else, pretty well defended. Makes it that much harder for us to get through unnoticed. It’s not impossible, just a little more difficult.”
    “So how does Ankin plan to march an army through no-man’sland without being noticed?”
    “He’ll find a way,” Preston answers. He’s not filling me with confidence. I try to steer the conversation back toward Ellis.
    “So that’s my plan,” I tell him. “Check the apartment first, then look for Ellis at Lizzie’s sister’s house.”
    “And if she’s not there?”
    “I haven’t thought that far ahead. I don’t want to.”
    Preston folds up the map and thinks for a moment.
    “What if I said we could help you?”
    “Help me? How?”
    “We’ve got a group of people heading out that way later today, looking for more recruits. You could go with them. You’ll have more chance if you go with our support.”
    “And what’s in it for you?”
    “There are just two conditions,” he announces ominously. “First, if you don’t find your girl, you forget about her and come back here and fight with us. Second, if you do find her, you both come back to us and fight.”

8
    I COULD’VE HAD ALL three of them,” Adam says, his voice weak and frail but somehow still filled with adrenaline-fueled enthusiasm and excitement. “I didn’t need your help. I’d have been perfectly fine if you hadn’t come back-”
    “Sure you would,” I interrupt. “You’re full of shit, do you know that?”
    “You’re the one who’s full of shit.” He laughs. “You were the one hiding up a ladder!”
    “I wasn’t hiding-”
    He coughs and laughs again, showering his bare chest with speckles of blood. There’s no two ways about it, he’s on his way out. His breathing is increasingly shallow and uneven. He was already severely weakened by the injuries inflicted by his dad and the subsequent untreated infections, and the brutal beating he took this morning did more than enough damage to push his broken body into total submission. He’s covered in bruises and swellings. He’s hardly moved in hours, and his condition is continuing to steadily worsen.
    It’s another swelteringly hot day. The air is dry, and the relentless heat makes the smell of thousands of badly decayed corpses even harder to stomach. The insect population is flourishing. It’s hard to take a breath without sucking in a lungful of buzzing little fuckers. We’re not heading into town until after dark, so there’s nothing to do for the next few hours except try to relax and ready myself for the next fight.
    “Need a drink,” Adam gasps. I grab a half-empty plastic bottle of water and hold it up to his chapped lips. He tries to swallow, but most of it runs down his chin. He coughs again and winces with sudden pain, but he doesn’t complain. Unbelievably, he’s still fired up by the rush of battle. Poor bastard’s completely oblivious to the fact he’ll probably be dead before the morning.
    “Next time,” he says, every word an effort, “I’m gonna aim straight for the head, know what I’m saying?”
    I nod. I don’t have the heart to tell him there’s not going to be a next time.
    “I know,” I lie.
    “See,” he continues, trying to prop himself up on his elbows but immediately dropping back down again, “they’ll look at me and think that because my arm and leg are fucked, I’ll be a pushover. But they’ll be wrong…”
    His eyelids flutter closed, and just for a second I think he’s gone. I reach out to check his pulse, but he bats me away when I touch his skin and mumbles something unintelligible. He’s like an animal, blissfully unaware of his own mortality, convinced he’s going to go on and on and on. In a way I can’t help but envy his ignorance. He fades into unconsciousness.
    “He dead?” a woman asks, her voice uncomfortably loud. I stand up and try to usher her away from Adam, but she stands her ground. Her name’s Julia. She’s coordinating the