A mechanic knelt on the ground, worrying at a co-worker’s throat like a dog tearing up a squirrel. He did not even glance at us as we passed.

A little Middle Eastern boy walked blindly across the tarmac, most of his lower face gone. His empty eyes turned toward us and he reached out with small hands.

A fat woman with most of her blouse torn away walked in a sloppy circle, hands clamped to her stomach to try and hold her intestines in place. Her strength failed and her guts spilled out and I heard Bunny gag.

“What the fuck, boss?” he begged, but I had no answers.

Instead, I turned to Torres. “What can you tell us?”

She cut me a brief look. “The president is in his suite,” she said quickly. “He has some Secret Service left, and there are some officers on the scene, but it’s all falling apart. We have the lobby barricaded, but it’s a big hotel and it’s right next to the convention center. There’s a couple of dozen ways in. When I left, the place was already under siege.”

“Can you get us in?” I asked.

She took too long to answer that. “I’m not even sure I can get you all that close. People are going crazy in the streets.”

Top leaned forward. “Did anyone tell you what this is? Do you know what’s happening?”

“I heard a lot of crazy rumors. Some kind of terrorist attack. A bioweapon or some shit. Or an accident at some government lab. Everyone has a story.”

“What do you think is happening?”

She looked at him in the rearview mirror. “I think someone left the back door of Hell unlocked.”

We said nothing.

“I shot a guy in the chest. Three rounds, center mass,” said Torres. “He went down because one of my bullets must have hit his spine. But even on the ground, even with a hole drilled through his fucking heart, he kept trying to bite me.”

“Jesus fuck,” said Bunny.

“I put another round in his head,” said Torres, but there was a hitch in her voice. “I shot him while he lay there on the ground.” She wiped at a tear and then looked at the wetness on her fingertips. Then she smeared it on the arc of the steering wheel. “I don’t know what’s going on. All I know is that death is broken.”

She reached Airport Terminal Road, which was choked with cars, some of them stopped in the middle of the road. People—alive and undead—were fighting between the cars.

“Hold onto your dicks,” she said. She crossed herself and wrenched the wheel over to send the Armada punching through a line of neatly-trimmed hedges. The big vehicle had four-wheel drive but it wasn’t built for this, and seatbelts or not, we were whipped and slammed around as the wheels crunched over curbs, shrubs, and fallen bodies. Then we burst out on North Harbor Road, which was also congested but not as badly. The engine roared as she accelerated while zigzagging around cars and people.