Ben had been taken on a blade. Milo, face-down in a spreading puddle of blood, had been killed by a blow to the head; Sam appeared to have gone down the same way, his skull caved in from the side.

Jacob was lying at the foot of Amy’s cot, the bolt from Ben’s cross jutting from his throat. A bit of blood was still bubbling from his lips; his eyes were open, wearing a look of surprise. In his outstretched hand he was clutching a length of iron pipe, smeared with blood and brain, white flecks among the red, clinging to its surface.

“Holy shit!” Caleb said. “Holy shit, they’re all dead!”

Everything about the scene had taken on a horrifying vividness. The bodies on the floor, the pooling blood. Jacob with the pipe in his hand. Michael was helping Sara to her feet. Amy was still cowering against the wall.

“It was Sam and Milo,” Sara croaked. Michael had helped his sister onto one of the cots. She spoke haltingly, through cracked and swollen lips, her teeth lined in crimson. “Ben and I tried to stop them. It was all … I don’t know. Sam was hitting me. Then someone else came in.”

“Was it Jacob?” Peter said. “He’s lying dead here, Sara.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know!”

Alicia took Peter by the elbow. “It doesn’t matter what happened,” she said urgently. “No one will ever believe us. We have to go now.”

They couldn’t risk the gate; Alicia explained what she wanted everyone to do. The important thing was to keep out of sight of the Wall. Peter and Caleb would go to the Storehouse, for ropes and packs and shoes for Amy; Alicia would lead the others to the rendezvous.

They crept from the Infirmary and fanned out. The main door to the Storehouse stood ajar, the lock hanging on its hasp—an odd detail, but nothing they had time to worry about now. Caleb and Peter moved into the dim interior with its long rows of bins. That was where they found Old Chou and, beside him, Walter Fisher. They were hanging side by side from the rafters, the ropes tight around their necks, their bare feet suspended above a bin of crated books. Their skin had taken on a grayish cast; both men’s tongues were hanging from their mouths. They had evidently used the crates as a kind of stepladder, assembling them into a pile and then, once the ropes were in place, kicking them away. For a moment Peter and Caleb just stood there, looking at the two men, the improbable image they made.

“Fuck … me,” said Caleb.

Alicia was right, Peter knew. They had to go now. Whatever was happening was vast and terrible, a force to sweep over them all.

They assembled their supplies and stepped outside. Then Peter remembered the maps.

“Go ahead,” he told Caleb. “I’ll catch up.”