The wooden walls of Gettys stood tall and black against the night sky.

There was a lone sentry on the gate. A torch burned low in a sconce beside him, making inky shadows at his feet. He drew himself up straighter as I approached and then commanded me to “Halt!” When I did, he announced, “This post is under quarantine. No one may enter who is sick with the plague.”

“That’s the most useless measure I’ve ever heard!” I exclaimed. “There’s plague both in and outside the walls. What is the use of a quarantine now?” He looked tired. “Colonel Haren gave the order before he took ill.

And now that he’s dead and Major Elwig is raving with fever, there’s no one to rescind it. I’m only doing my duty.”

“And I’m doing the same. I’ve come in from the cemetery. And I’m not bringing any sickness that isn’t already here. Scout Buel Hitch was sent out on a corpse wagon a bit prematurely. I think that if a doctor could come to his aid, he might recover.”

He laughed. There was no joy in it, or even bitterness. He laughed because I so casually suggested the impossible. “The town doctor is dead. Both the regiment doctors are overwhelmed with the sick already. Neither will leave the infirmary to go to treat a single victim, regardless of who he is.” ]

“I have to try,” I said, and with a skeptical nod, he passed me through. I found my way through the darkened post to the infirmary where I had brought Hitch on my first day in Gettys. Lanterns burned on either side of the entry. Outside it, a double row of draped bodies awaited the corpse wagons. I walked carefully around them and entered the building. The same boyish soldier who had greeted me the first day was asleep at the desk in the anteroom, his head pillowed on his arms on top of a thick book. Even in his sleep, he looked pale and frightened.

I knocked gently on the desk to awaken him. He lifted his head immediately, his mouth hanging slack. It took a moment for his eyes to focus. “Sir?” he asked me vaguely.

“Not ‘sir,’ just ‘soldier.’ I need a doctor for Scout Buel Hitch.” He looked sleepily confused. “Scout Hitch is dead. I logged him into the record myself.” He gestured at the ledger he’d been using for a pillow. “He revived at the cemetery. I think that he’ll live if he can get a doctor’s care.”

His eyes widened slightly. He sat up straighter and looked more alert.

“Lieutenant Hitch is a walker? Ah. Well, if anyone would be, it would be him. But I doubt he’ll live. Walkers hardly ever live. They only revive for an hour or so, and then die again. Dr. Dowder and Dr. Frye argue about it all the time when Dr. Dowder is sober. Dowder says they just go into a deep coma, rally briefly, and then die. Frye says they really die and then come back. He wrote a big report for the queen about how the Speck magic makes them wake up a final time after their first death before they die their final death. She sent him a present for writing it. The big green ring he wears on his left hand.”