The big canister was running dry. Where there had been a surge of mist coming out, there were now only stuttering wisps of the stuff, like the last coughs of some dying animal. After a few seconds even those stopped. The tank was empty. Sam watched as the wind pushed the last of the mist away, clearing it from the airspace above the cornfield, and then the road and the first yards beyond. The wind was strong; in another minute or two the subdivision would be cleared of the stuff, for whatever that was worth—the damage had already been done.

Dani jumped down to the pavement beside Sam, took two running steps and vaulted across the ditch into the cornfield where the chopper had crashed. She landed without stopping and took off at a sprint.

Sam followed her lead. He’d just landed in the cornfield when Pierce called out behind them: “Hold up!”

Sam stopped. Twenty paces ahead, Dani stopped, too. They both turned and looked back.

Pierce nodded up the road toward the subdivision. “I need to get up there and be ready to talk to the military, when they roll in. If my message didn’t get their attention, all this sure as hell will. I need to explain to them what’s going on, so they don’t start shooting these people when they wake up.” He nodded toward where Lauren lay, in the field. “Get your friend and then go someplace where you’ll be safe.” He was quiet a second, thinking. “You said you’ve been to Station Fourteen, north of here?”

Sam nodded.

“If you can move Lauren,” Pierce said, “take her there. Close yourselves inside, and stay put until I come and get you. You’ll be okay.”

Sam glanced at the subdivision. The bodies strewn there were still motionless. So far.

“Are you going to be okay?” Sam asked.

“I know what I’m doing,” Pierce said. “Good luck.”

He put the Jeep back in gear and goosed it, accelerating up Truman toward the southern edge of the subdivision.

Sam watched for another three seconds, then turned to Dani, and the two of them took off running again toward Lauren.

They covered the distance in less than a minute, sprinting through the knee-high corn stalks.

Sam could still see Lauren moving, rolling back and forth where she lay.

He also kept his eyes on the other two bodies—two of the men who’d been in the chopper. Like Lauren, they lay far away from where the gas cloud had been. If they were alive, they weren’t infected—a fact that made them more dangerous, he realized. So far, though, he hadn’t seen either of them move.

He caught up to Dani in the last ten yards of the run. He pointed at the two men, then put a finger to his lips: shhh. Dani nodded.