It was brutal work. I don’t know how many there were. Fifteen? Twenty?

I had so much rage in me. Grief is a terrible fuel because it burns hot and never seems to burn out. Frustration stokes that fire. Desperation pours gasoline on it. And yet beneath all that were skills honed over a lifetime in jujutsu, the police, the army and then Special Forces. I am a killer, and I proved it right there, witnessed only by a dog and the milky eyes of the undead.

I killed them all.

Every single one.

There was a strange time of stillness afterward. The dog stood on the overturned truck and stared at me. I stood and looked up at him. Maybe neither of us was all that sure we recognized the other. It was that kind of world. Birds sat in rows on telephone wires and the edges of roofs and watched us.

I cleared my throat and then spat dust and fear onto the ground.

“Baskerville,” I said. Not a question. Saying his name. Letting him hear it and know it. Then he did something that absolutely broke my heart.

He wagged his tail.

That was six months ago. That was when he didn’t die, and I no longer wanted to.

— 2 —

THE WARRIOR WOMAN

The night air was still, quiet. Too quiet. It made Rachael uneasy, raising the hair along her arms and the back of her neck. Too quiet meant nothing nearby trying to survive—no animals or birds or humans. Too quiet meant nothing living.

Too quiet meant dead.

Holding up one hand, she signaled the four young people behind her—two women and two men—to stop. Then she crouched down, moving quietly through the brush, pushing aside the thorny branches that plucked at her clothes, snagging on her leather armor. She didn’t make a sound beyond a slight rustle of leaves and the creak of well-oiled leather as she unsheathed an elvish style dagger strapped to her belt, holding it at the ready.

For a moment all she heard was the rhythmic pounding of her own heartbeat. Then the sound of something shuffling along the ground with an uneven gait. First a crunching noise, then a swoosh. Maybe someone limping, dragging an injured limb behind. The smell of rotting flesh settled any doubt of whether it was human or orc.

Crunch, swoosh, crunch, swoosh. The sound carried across the night air as her eyes scouted for its source under the shards of moonlight filtering down through the treetops.

There. Up ahead to the right of the path. The bramble bushes trembled as a slumped figure emerged, ignoring the sharp thorns that tore at its skin and ragged clothing.

Gesturing to her friends to follow, she scanned for any more orcs before leaping to her feet and charging toward the lone figure. It turned toward the sound of her footsteps and moaned; an unearthly death rattle that echoed through the trees, sending a shiver down Rachael’s spine despite the countless times she’d heard it.