Then he caught a whiff of something. At first he recoiled, thinking that it was the rotting stench of a zom, but he shook his head and took another sniff at the odor on the breeze. It was similar to the spoiled-meat smell of cadaverine or putrescence.

The sounds were louder now. Whoever was sneaking through the woods was coming his way. Panic jumped in Chong’s chest, but he fought it down. He looked around and studied the woods for a couple of good choices for escape routes if the stranger came directly toward him. The best route was to his right, a stony path shaded by chokeberry and bitterbrush shrubs. He edged toward it, ready to bolt.

A man suddenly emerged from the woods twenty feet in front of Chong.

But he was facing the other way. Chong froze and stared at the stranger.

And strange he was.

The man was short and broad-shouldered, with huge biceps like soccer balls, a freakishly overdeveloped chest, and almost no neck at all. He wore the same black clothes as the people on the motorbikes, with red streamers fluttering in the sluggish breeze.

The man started to turn, and Chong slipped soundlessly behind a bush, certain that he hadn’t been spotted.

A pair of angel wings had been carefully embroidered on the man’s shirt, and around his neck was a chunky steel chain from which hung a slender silver whistle. Chong recognized it at once.

A dog whistle. Benny was right.

What drew Chong’s eye, though, and sent a thrill of icy fear through him, was the thing the man carried in his massive fists. A long, twisted wooden handle from which a wicked blade curved like the fang of some great dragon.

A scythe.

Chong remembered the word Riot had used.

Reapers.

His mouth went totally dry.

The big man stood listening to the forest, much as Chong had done. His face was harsh and grim, but then a small smile formed on his thin-lipped mouth.

“No sense hiding,” said the reaper as he brought the scythe up and made a slow, deliberate cut through the afternoon air. “Hiding will only make it hurt more.”

Chapter 28

28

SHE DRIFTED IN DARKNESS.

Lost.

The Lost Girl.

That was what people called her.

Lost.

For years the travelers in the Ruin believed that she was a myth. Or a ghost.

In the towns, she was a campfire tale. Something used to frighten children.

There were a dozen versions of the Lost Girl story, and in each one of them she died. Sometimes the zoms got her. Sometimes it was crazed loners. Sometimes it was her own bleak despair.

The Lost Girl died, though, in every version of the legend.

When Benny, Nix, and Tom brought her to Mountainside and she learned about those stories, she laughed. They were stupid stories. Silly.

A teenage girl, living alone? With no one to protect her?