The only thing she wanted was to get as far away from Talas as she could—and as quickly as possible.

Even this far away from what she thought of as the core of crazy, there was carnage. (“Crazy” was an adorably weak word for what was happening here. This madness was blocking out the sun.) Automobiles and trucks were scattered across the road like toy cars thrown by a toddler.

There were dead bodies everywhere. A young girl in a pale pink floral dress hung out of the window of a pale blue Lada. There was a bloody scalpel in her hands. She’d slashed her wrists and had gouged out her eyes, too. A small pool of blood coagulated on the road underneath her. Michelle wanted to feel something, but she was numb. Numb from what she’d seen already. And numb from what she’d done.

Glass from shattered windshields ground under her boots. The road here was buckled and cracked, too. And she tripped and fell occasionally.

There was a pile of corpses ahead. They were bloated and bruise-colored. Some of the bodies had already exploded, and maggots covered the entrails. With numb horror, she realized that festering dead bodies that hadn’t been changed into grotesqueries was the most normal thing she’d seen in a while.

There were so many ruined vehicles that Michelle despaired of ever finding one that ran.

She came upon a relatively intact Gaz with its driver’s-side door hanging off one hinge. She ran up to it and saw there were keys dangling from the ignition. The surge of joy she felt made her queasy.

She got in and turned the key. The ignition clicked, then nothing. She tried again, giving the gas a pump. Still nothing.

“Fuckfuckfuckfuck!” she screamed in anger and frustration. She pounded her hands on the steering wheel until they turned red.

She got out and kicked the one-hinged door three times, trying to make it fall off. All it did was make her foot throb with pain.

She wanted to kill someone. Anyone.

The influence of whatever was coming from Talas was still strong enough to be affecting her. She had to get all the way out of the corruption zone. Or Batshit Crazy Town, as she decided it should be called for now. Oh, the hysterical funny on that one. She was just distracting herself. Anything so she didn’t have to think about killing Aero. About blasting his head open and then making a bloody paste of his body. In the faint, lingering, crazy buzzing, she was filled with grief.