Three days ago, Mike Underwood, a young man best known for his football prowess in high school, startled every resident by driving into town in a 1960s-vintage Chevrolet El Camino. It had belonged to his grandfather, and because of its ancient mechanics, it still ran. Right away, he became the town livery driver. His first mission was to drive Dr. Rory out to Martha Merrill’s house up on the mountain, about ten miles outside of town. She had cancer, and her unofficial caretakers—the Boyle family—had relocated their family to town.

That story did not have a happy ending. Mrs. Merrill had been dead for at least two days by the time they arrived. Dr. Rory was very complimentary of Mike Underwood’s stoicism and cooperation as they wrapped her body in a bedsheet and carried it outside, where it could be consumed by marauding carnivores. For the time being, that was the new normal for people who died. There just wasn’t time for funerals, and even if they had the time, they didn’t have the manpower.

New arrivals brought rumors and news from other parts of the state and beyond. Where the reports conflicted, Victoria chose to believe the more optimistic version. But there was no denying the devastation. By all accounts, Charleston no longer existed. The same was true of Huntington, Wheeling and Morgantown. Rumors swirled about smaller tactical sites in the most western regions of the state, but none of them had been confirmed by anyone with direct knowledge.

So far, radiation sickness had not been a problem in Ortho. New arrivals shared horrific stories of relatives and friends who agonized through the progressive burn injuries that seemed to consume victims from the inside to the outside, ultimately leaving people begging to be euthanized.

More than a couple of new townspeople confessed to doing that very thing to their loved ones who couldn’t take the suffering anymore.

Hanging over everything was the future of Brandon-Lee May. Since he’d been taken into custody, he’d been held under close guard in the basement of St. Thomas’s Church, Victoria’s adopted home. No conflict there, right? The assigned judge as caretaker? But she had no choice.

The first challenge had been to find reliable guards. According to Joe McCrea, Caine Foster could be trusted not to shoot the prisoner outright, and he’d gone on to find others that he thought he could count on. They guarded Brandon-Lee in rotating five-hour shifts, and thus far, the young man hadn’t posed any big problems. The real issue was security. Church basements were not built with the idea of holding prisoners, but the walls were made of stone, and, ironically, the high windows were barred to prevent burglaries. There was a bathroom down there, and the prisoner’s ankles were shackled at all times.