She stops and lowers Malachai to the ground behind the rusted and overgrown remains of what might once have been a car. “There is a thin band of radiation at the fence line,” she tells me, wiping sweat from her forehead. “We’ve already passed through it. From here until about half a mile in, the radiation levels are low enough that they won’t harm us.”

I let Malachai’s legs fall gently to the mossy ground. “I don’t understand.”

“I mean that a radioactive barrier was set up twelve years ago to convince the Alts that the Red Zones were still just as dangerous as they have always been. The actual radiation has receded since then to almost half a mile that way.” She points a finger into the thinning line of trees ahead of us. “That is how the Missing have been able to disappear without a trace.”

I look back to the fence and then forward into the woodland. “So, we’re safe?”

“They won’t go beyond the barrier because they believe—like you did—that their skin will begin to boil, and their eyes will pour out of their heads. They’ll send Mosquitoes in, but we don’t have to worry about them.”

I stare at my sister for a few seconds and then smile. “Fuck, Molly, it’s so good to see you.”

And, after a moment of vacancy, she smiles too. “You too, Luka.” She steps around Malachai and hugs me.

“How the hell did you get out of the vault?” I ask.

“I’ll tell you in Purgatory,” she says, and picks Malachai up once again.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” I ask, but we’re moving again, and she doesn’t reply.

We carry Malachai though the overgrown trees and into an almost-perfectly-preserved town, a place that hasn’t been touched since the Third World War ended with a flurry of nuclear blasts. There are some of the earliest battery-powered electric cars from the 2040s, and even a few gas and diesel cars from earlier, odd metal streetlights that curve at the top to shine light down onto black pavement, quaint brick houses in old-fashioned shapes and styles, billboards with paper posters advertising satellite television packages and cell phones.

As we move slowly through the town, I can’t help but feel I’ve stepped back in time. I’m about to point out a rusting old motorcycle to Molly when I see that she is looking around, nervous, perhaps scared.

“Everything all right?” I ask.

“Just keep your eyes and ears open,” she says. “A lot of wild animals around here.”

And, as if her words have turned the volume up in this strange part of the world, I begin to hear the crunching of dried, scorched grass, the distant howls of creatures that sound as though they’re either in excruciating pain or a blind and insane rage.