My gun is in one pocket, my flashlight in the other. Trey carries his rifle and the tire iron. The grocery store glass was tough enough; I can’t imagine what it will take to break into a hospital. We might have to use precious bullets after all.

But, no, someone has already done the work for us. The wall of glass is shattered, the steel framing buckled. The nose of a huge black truck with a king cab is mashed into a bent silver crossbeam that may have been part of a doorway once. Glass shards litter the ruined cab and the cars around it; they glint like ice in the sun.

“Well, there’s an idea,” Trey says. “Next time we need to get inside a place, we’ll just drive a huge truck through it.”

“We’d end up like that guy,” I say, pointing toward the dry but mangled corpse face-planted into a deflated airbag.

“We could get a car rolling and jump out,” he says.

I slide off the last fender and grab Emmaline before she can walk through the glass. She doesn’t protest when I pick her up, just pricks her ears forward and thumps her tail against my waist. The entrance is shadowed by high-rises on either side, so it’s a lot darker here than in the grocery store. Muggy, too, thick with rancid meat and old urine.

A null symbol in glittery blue spray paint shimmers at us from right outside the doorway.

“What kind of vandal tags a hospital?” Trey says as we step inside.

Glass crunches beneath my boots, then sticks to my soles. I peer at the floor and discover that much of it is covered in still-gummy bird poop.

“No sign of power,” Trey says.

I lift my foot up to the edge of the reception counter and scrape my sole against it to get the sticky glass off. “Maybe in ICU?”

“Hospitals are required by law to have emergency power, but I don’t know for which sections or for how long. Generators might have run out of fuel days ago.” Trey pulls a flashlight from the pocket of his long coat and flicks it on.

I set Emmaline down and do the same with my own flashlight. I sweep it around and discover that Trey and I guessed right: there are so many dead bodies.

They sit slumped in the waiting chairs, curled up in the hallway, and even collapsed against giant potted ficus trees. Several gurneys are lined up behind the reception desk, each containing a corpse watched over by an IV tree and a dangling, empty IV bag.

“You still want to do this?” Trey’s whisper echoes through the corridor.

I stare at the gurneys.

“Paige?”

“That was me,” I say. “That’s how I woke up. With my bag empty like that. And my sheets . . .” I stop myself from saying, soaked with pee.

“I’m sorry.”