They stood on the hill and stared, and Barry understood Mark's nightmares. The trees at the edge of the snow were stark, like trees in the middle of winter. Beyond them other trees had snow halfway up their trunks, and their naked branches stood unmoving, some of them at odd angles, where the pressure had already knocked them over and the snow had prevented their falling. Up higher there were no trees visible at all, only snow.

"Is it still growing?" Barry asked in a hushed voice. No one answered. After a few more minutes, they turned and hurried back the way they had come. As they circled Philadelphia heading east, the Geiger counter kept warning them to stay back, and they could get no closer to the city from this direction than they had been able to from the west. Then they found the first bodies.

Six boys had come out together. Two had fallen near each other; the others had left them, continued another half-mile and collapsed. The bodies were all radioactive.

"Don't get near them," Barry said as Anthony started to kneel by the first bodies. "We don't dare touch them," he said.

"I should have stayed," Mark whispered. He was staring at the sprawled bodies. There was mud on their faces. "I shouldn't have left. I should have kept after them, to make sure they didn't go on. I should have stayed."

Barry shook his arm, and Mark kept staring, repeating over and over, "I should have stayed with them. I should…" Barry slapped him hard, then again, and Mark bowed his head and stumbled away, reeling into trees and bushes as he rushed away from the bodies, away from Barry and Anthony. Barry ran after him and caught his arm.

"Mark! Stop this! Stop it, do you hear me!" He shook him hard again. "Let's get back to Washington."

Mark's cheeks were glistening with tears. He pulled away from Barry and started to walk again, and he didn't look back at the bodies.

Barry and Bruce waited for Anthony and Andrew, who had requested, demanded, time to talk to them. "It's about him again, isn't it?" Bruce said.

"I suppose."

"Something's got to be done," Bruce said. "You and I both know we can't let him go on this way. They'll demand a council meeting next, and that'll be the end of it."

Barry knew. Andrew and his brother entered and sat down. They both looked grim and angry.

"I don't deny he had a bad time during the summer," Andrew said abruptly. "That isn't the point now. But whatever happened to him has affected his mind, and that is the point. He's behaving in a childish, irresponsible way that simply cannot be tolerated."