Hope is such a fragile and dangerous thing, and I almost did not want to have it rekindled in my chest. I’d hoped to find Junie and Ethan at the farm. Top and Bunny had hoped to find their families, too. I don’t know if they ever did, or if they ever made it to the base in Nevada. If so, they probably thought I was dead after all these months. They’d have given up hope on me.

Now there was the chance, however slim or unlikely, that Mr. Church was alive and somewhere near here. Alive and doing what he did, which was to impose order on chaos.

Once upon a time Church had been a field operator like me. Well, if any of the many tall tales about him were true, then not really like me. He was stranger, smarter, more dangerous—and more capable. He had been the adult in any room, the alpha of any gathering, even when he was among a few dozen SpecOps jocks. You couldn’t really imagine him as a child any more than you could imagine him dead. He was more like a force of nature than a person.

Am I exaggerating? No, I really don’t think so. The phrase “larger than life” kind of defines him. Christ knows how many times I’d wondered what he’d been doing when Lucifer 113 got loose. If he hadn’t been infected, then it was no surprise at all that he was still working to save the world. Or at least as much of it as he could. Who knows, maybe he’s the one who decided that Asheville was the rally point. That wouldn’t surprise me even a little bit.

The thing is, he actually was old. He was sixty-something when I met him, and I was in my early thirties at the time. Now he had to be pushing eighty. How much fight could there be left in him?

I had to find out.

So, with my dog running beside me, we followed trail after trail, mostly following the path Abdul’s team had taken. It was clear enough because of the tread-marks from their shoes. Abdul’s Doc Marten’s, and a mix of combat soles and Timberlands worn by his guys. Easy.

By noon the next day I found a small pack of travelers walking down the center of a blacktop that was cracked and choked with weeds. Eleven of them, ranging from a woman of seventy down to a toddler in a stroller. They saw me coming and one of them pulled out a hunting bow and goddamn near killed me, but I stopped and put my hands up.

“Not looking for trouble,” I called. “Captain Ledger, U.S. army. Looking for my unit.” Again, a useful lie.

“Lose the hardware,” called the old lady.