The man to his right wore a similar necklace, though his was made up of thumbs. Some of them looked fresh. Dahlia’s heart hammered in her chest. She stared through the lenses at the grisly objects. If the world was still kind, if the world had not torn free of the hinges of sanity, then those trophies would have all been caked with blood that was as black as night. With the blood of the dead.

But the world was offering no mercy that day. It offered no kindness and the very air seemed to babble with madness. The blood—dried now to a chocolatey brown—was not from the infected. It was human blood.

Then the day, already spiraling down toward darkness, got so much worse. Trash said something to the men, then turned and pointed into the woods.

Pointing to where Old Man Church’s camp was.

Pointing to where Dahlia lived.

— 21 —: THE WARRIOR WOMAN

— 21 —

THE WARRIOR WOMAN

Rachael thought they’d found a model for heaven in the World After, but instead she found hell.

Catching back up with Claudia and Jason, Rachael had filled them in on what she’d found out and they’d shared their own grim stories. They’d managed to talk to more than one of the non-residents; evidently their own skin colors made it easier for the workers to trust them. With each new story things got worse. Rachael felt sick. Finally she walked with her friends back to their temporary home, but after grabbing her dagger and tucking it into her belt under her shirt, she told them she was going out again.

“I want to see if I can talk to Tommy’s parents.”

It took a little wandering to locate their home again, but she found Tommy outside drawing on their walkway with colored chalk. He gave a friendly wave when he saw her. Ruffling his hair, she asked, “How are you doing, kiddo?”

“I had a bad dream about the Apple Man,” he said sadly, but then shrugged, going back to his chalk drawing, the trauma of the previous day easily forgotten.

His father answered the door, a handsome Caucasian man in his early forties. There were some soft lines at the corner of his blue eyes and hints of gray beginning to shade his temples. He looked untouched by any of the horrors outside the walls of Happy Valley.

He frowned when he saw her. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Rachael. My friends and I brought Tommy home yesterday.”

At that, he smiled and shook her hand emphatically. “You’re the girl who saved him! I’m Will Manners. Please, come in. My wife will want to thank you.”

He gestured with one arm, waving her inside. She stepped across the threshold gingerly, feeling out of place as soon as she entered. A beautiful grandfather clock, expensive pieces of art, and artfully arranged flowers decorated the interior, and that was just the entrance hall.