Something moved to my right. And to my left.

And then all around the vast cemetery.

Mappers.

Still dressed like ranch hands, probably from Billy Joe Durant’s two-thousand-head cattle operation to the north. At least thirty of them.

Somehow in the fog, I’d missed them. And they’d missed me.

They walked their patterns in every direction I looked. Their heads tilted downward, they swept through the cemetery like an army of ants, covering every square inch.

Entry 32

ENTRY 32

Standing before my parents’ graves, I unfocused my gaze, trying to take in as many of the Hosts as possible. The entire cemetery seemed alive, crawling with them. Their movements were coordinated, the Mappers keeping a short distance apart as they strategically covered ground. I thought about using the revolver, but by the time I’d spent the six shots, the remaining Hosts would’ve swamped me.

A ranch hand in a ragged denim jacket was closing in fast. He turned crisply on his heel, cutting across the back of a mausoleum. His next pivot would take him directly into me. And anywhere I stepped would be right into the path of another Host. A second Mapper trudged along behind me; others walked spirals to either side of my parents’ graves. Beyond the nearest Hosts were layers more, deep in every direction, stretching as far as the darkness and thinning mist allowed me to see.

I dropped to the moist earth before my parents’ plots. The grass smelled fresh like summer, like baseball. A few wisps of fog floated through the air.

I had let go of everyone and everything in the world. I was as alone as I’d ever been, as alone as I’d ever be.

A squish of mud signaled the ranch hand’s next turn. He emerged from the side of the mausoleum, heading for me, his head scanning the ground just ahead of the tips of his boots.

I grabbed the baling hooks so hard that my knuckles ached.

Wet grass slurped at his boots as he moved forward. His eyeless eyes were inches from noticing me. I watched the cant of his head.

And it struck me how I could save myself.

Sliding off my pack, I rolled neatly backward over my shoulders, landing on all fours atop my parents’ graves. Somehow the Stetson stayed on my head. The Mapper walked right past me, close enough that the cuff of his pant leg shushed across my cheek.

Easing to my feet, I pulled the pack on again and slid behind him. I kept right on his back, the tattered denim undulating between his shoulder blades inches from my face. I held his pace precisely, put my boots in his footsteps. When he turned, I turned. I could gaze straight through his head from behind, which helped me gauge where we were going. We crossed paths with another Mapper who drifted within spitting distance but did not look up.