Dead. So dead. I can’t crank the gas fast enough. For an hour I see his shrunken face at the backs of my eyes.

As the sun marks four o’clock, a dark brown slash appears on the horizon. The town’s outer wall blocks the road ahead. Arn’s told me the battered wooden barricade is heavily guarded. I’ll have to talk to a man and surrender my weapons before I can enter. If they’re feeling generous, they’ll give my gun back when I leave. If they’re having a bad day, well, I might not make it out alive.

I pull up to the gate and squeeze the brake. The wall itself is enough to make me want to give up this whole plan. The thick wooden beams are topped with rusty nails, coils of razor-sharp barbed wire and broken glass that winks in the sunlight. The guard tower is twenty-foot wooden enclosure with a platform at the top. As I kill the engine, a burly man leans out of the tower and aims an assault rifle at my head. I throw my hands up.

“State your business!” he yells.

My voice catches in my throat and nothing comes out but a muted squeak.

The man shouts out again, his tone dangerous. “State your business or I’ll blow off that foot!”

In the last second before I speak, I remember I’m supposed to be a man. My voice comes out choked and artificial. “I … I’m looking for someone.”

The guard keeps the barrel aimed at my chest. Nervous sweat soaks my undershirt.

“Who you looking for?” he growls.

“My, uh, business associate,” I yell up in my fake male voice. “Arn Meemick. Left three days ago with most of our supplies. Never returned.”

“You here to shoot him?”

“No, sir. Just wonder what happened to my supplies.” I blink the sweat out of my eyes and try to keep my breathing level.

The guard pulls his gun back and disappears below the tower wall. The gate creaks open.

As I hop back on the quad, I fight the urge to turn and drive in the opposite direction. Arn, Arn. I drive through the two massive wooden doors, big and scary as the gates of hell.

The guard blocks the road with his massive body. He’s six-foot-four and muscled in areas I didn’t even know possible, his arm awash in scrawling blue tattoos. Only someone brave or crazy would puncture their skin and risk infection for decoration. He’s wearing cowhide boots and vest tied together with bits of electrical cord, the frayed ends splayed out like whiskers. And on his face—a grimace so unwelcome he could stop a stampede. He waves me over to where a dozen other vehicles sit inside the wall. I park the quad in between a rusted motorcycle and a truck with no doors. As I step off, he comes up.

The long barrel of his rifle is aimed at my chest when I turn. I throw my hands up. “I … I thought I was okay.”