Several of the Rovers abandoned the fight and ran for the closest section of woods. There, in the shadows beneath the trees, were two figures. A woman and a man, dressed in hazmat suits but without the hoods.

No one who went into those woods came out again.

***

The sniper in the back heard the screams and saw flames coming from the east, which made no sense. That wasn’t part of the plan. He signaled to his spotters and the three of them ran along the slope, hidden by the pines, hurrying to offer support to Big Elroy. They wanted to be part of the big push anyway.

They got about halfway there when they saw something coming down the slope toward them. Something that ran on four feet, but was an impossible shape. Like a dog but with spikes.

The sniper turned and raised his rifle, but he was one full second too late.

***

The army of the dead was burning.

Burning.

Dahlia stood on the wall. Her face was covered with soot, her eyes stung. Her mind was numb and she was half deaf from all the explosions. Out in the field, the whole mass of the living dead was burning.

Thousands of them.

Burning.

There was no sign at all of the Rovers. Not living ones, anyway. The bombs had done terrible work. The ANFO and the Molotov cocktails. The zombies had done the rest, killing even while they burned.

Dahlia wiped something away from her cheek. She thought it was going to be a drop of someone’s blood. It wasn’t.

She stood there for a long, long time looking at the wetness of her tears on her fingertips.

***

Mr. Church stood on the wall. The Pack and the helpers were still firing. The Rovers, those few that remained, were falling. Dying. Ending.

Far across the field, on a knoll, Church saw a big man on a horse. Another man was running toward him, wearing a hoodless hazmat suit with something strapped across his back. A sword of some kind, though the distance was too great to tell. It was almost certainly the man who’d thrown the fire bombs at the ladders. The one who’d boobytrapped the ladders. He was going after the mounted Rover with the axe. From what Church had learned over the last few weeks, he judged that the horseman was Big Elroy, leader of the Rovers. He had a couple of men with him, and they rushed to intercept the stranger. One of them had an automatic rifle; the other had a pair of long-bladed knives.