“Or,” said Benny, trying a different tack, “there could be something else dead out there. We’ve seen half the animals from Noah’s Ark since we left town.”

It was true enough. Ever since the fall of civilization, wild animals from zoos and circuses had escaped to breed in the Ruin. There were rumors of all kinds of exotic creatures, from rivers filled with hippos to herds of zebras. Shortly after Tom led them from Mountainside they’d gotten firsthand experience, chancing upon a cranky mother rhino that had trampled an entire field of zoms while protecting her calf. She nearly trampled Benny and his friends, too. Since then they’d seen monkeys in the trees, giraffes, birds they did not recognize, and at least three species of deerlike animals with horns that none of them could name. And they had also found bones of animals, large and small, brought down either by zoms, disease, or the new wilderness predators.

Benny nodded at the pistol Nix wore in a nylon shoulder harness. Tom’s pistol. “Do you think we should warn Lilah?”

Firing two spaced shots exactly ten seconds apart was a signal they’d agreed on. If any of them heard it, they were supposed to come back to camp as quickly—and cautiously—as possible. Gunshots carried with them the danger of attracting roaming zombies, so they were only to be used in an absolute worst-case scenario. The other consideration was that it wasted bullets. Lilah had thirty-one rounds for the Sig Sauer automatic she carried, and there were fourteen for Tom’s .38 Smith & Wesson.

Nix chewed her lower lip thoughtfully and made no move to set Eve down. She carried the revolver, partly because she was a far better shot than Benny, and partly because Benny had a dislike and distrust of guns that had increased into an outright hatred since Gameland. The psychopathic old man, Preacher Jack, had shot Tom in the back with a gun. They were tools only, to be used—like the signal plan—as a last resort.

“We don’t have a lot of bullets left,” said Nix. “Besides . . . gunshots make a lot of noise, and we don’t know how many more zoms are in the forest.”

Chong nodded. “Lilah can take care of herself; and she won’t appreciate you second-guessing her like this.”

“A warning isn’t second-guessing,” replied Benny. “She doesn’t know what’s out there.”

“Neither do we,” said Chong. “I mean, let’s have a little perspective here. A few vultures is a mystery, not a certain catastrophe.”

“Maybe,” Benny said dubiously, but he did not ask Nix for the gun. For her part, Nix did not seem anxious to give it over. She stroked Eve’s fine blond hair and studied the sky.