As it fell away, visibility returned—revealing that the van was headed straight into the river that they had crossed on the way here. Richardson hit the brakes, causing the clumsy vehicle to slide in the gravel, but not to stop. They were going in.

“Brace,” Mark shouted.

The edge of the bridge shot toward them and beyond it the water, black and fast. And then Richardson got the van stopped. For a moment, they sat motionless.

Linda sobbed. Other than that, there wasn’t a sound.

Richardson threw it into reverse, backing away from the water’s edge. He drove up the shoulder and proceeded across the bridge. They went speeding down the country road, under the broad, overhanging trees, past the blue-flowering vines that trailed along the roadside, and the green fields and harvested fields beyond.

Just like that, they’d gone from hell to heaven.

A couple of boys were running the tractor they’d heard earlier.

“Stop the van!”

“Sir!”

As they rolled to a halt, Mark reached back and opened the rear bay. The sweet scent of a country morning replaced the stink of sweat and terror. He looked behind them, looked to the sky, saw blue morning, that was all. The woods appeared to be at peace, the deep green of the thick pines conferring a darkness he found ominous, or perhaps that was because he knew what they concealed. Cursed woods.

Linda came out behind him.

“Those kids probably go back in there all the time,” she said. “They’re bound to.”

He had always known that there would come a day like this, when the civilian world began to be involved. His soldier’s mind kept repeating, We have no defense, we have no defense.

In the distance, he watched the boys cutting their hayfield.

“What do we do?” Linda asked.

He said the only thing he could say: “We return to base, report, and await orders.”

“Oh, good. So then we come back out here after lunch, maybe, and gather up the little-boy skeletons?”

“This needs a division, Linda. At least. It needs Delta Force or more.”

She bowed her head, acknowledging just how profoundly the situation had deteriorated.

His phone lit. Gina.

“Go ahead.”

“What was that about, Colonel?”

“You saw it?”

“I saw discharges, a lot of them. What’s wrong down there, Colonel?”

“We have a casualty. Charles Massengill is KIA.”

Short silence, then, “Okay.” A world of shock and sorrow in the tone.

“There are civilians in close proximity to what I think is some sort of hostile infestation, and it’s damned aggressive.”

“Listen, Mark, I want you people out of there.”

“What about this farm?”

“We’ll stage a quarantine and send in the local health department to evacuate the family.”

“When?”

“Just get out of there.”

“We need to take these kids with us.”