“Pretty sure,” Houjin confirmed. “It held Mr. Swakhammer the other day, and he weighs as much as all three of us together.”

“Maybe he weakened it up for us.”

“Maybe you’re a chicken,” Houjin offered.

“Calling other fellows chicken is a good way to get your nose socked in.”

Houjin didn’t look too worried. He said, “I’ll remember that. And you remember that all these things—the lanterns, the bridges, and the stairs—are here for a reason. You can use them, or you can die within a day or two.”

“What happened to that cheerful son of a bitch who woke me up?” Rector said, rhetorically.

“Guys, knock it off,” Zeke pleaded. “Rector, tell me more about the monster you saw at the chuckhole.”

“I already told you the whole story. This guy,” he said, cocking a thumb at Houjin, “has heard it three times now, and I bet he’s sick of it.”

Houjin nudged the bridge with his toes. Unless Rector’s eyes deceived him, it was made of more doors fitted together end to end, buttressed with planks. “At least it’s interesting. The monster, I mean. More interesting than listening to you complain.”

“You believe him?” Zeke asked.

“I saw it, too. And Miss Angeline believed him, I think.”

Zeke seemed surprised. “Really?”

Houjin nodded. “She knows a lot about what happens outside the walls. Maybe something lives out there, something we never saw inside here.”

“Like what?” Zeke asked.

“Like … an animal?”

Rector disagreed. “Never saw an animal like that before. Just like I still ain’t seen no rotters.”

Both Houjin and Zeke went to the roof’s edge, where there was nothing but a low wall between them and the streets below. They leaned out over the abyss, squinting as far as they could through the thickened air.

Rector joined them, albeit a bit more carefully.

Zeke said, “It’s weird, ain’t it? Up here, we don’t need to worry about getting their attention. They can’t touch us. Or they couldn’t, if they were hanging around. These blocks should be … there should be dozens … hundreds of the things by now. We haven’t been real quiet.” He sounded almost disappointed, like he’d wanted to show Rector this bizarre, interesting thing about his new hometown, but he’d been thwarted.

Rector didn’t mind the silence and its utter lack of rotters. Exhaustion had settled on him like a cast-iron coat and dampened everything else—his nervousness, his faint, morbid eagerness and dread about seeing the undead, and even his irritation at Houjin.

He said, “It’s all right with me. Like the nuns always say, we should count our blessings. Let’s go see ol’ what’s-his-name and get this over with.”