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KEITH STOPS THE VAN behind a row of overflowing garbage cans, alrab our individual bags of weapons and supplies and head for the shelter of the building The front doors are , and the entrance foyer is as trashed as everywhere else Like an idiot I instinctively press the button to call the elevator Old habits die hard

"Don&039;t think that&039;s going to do anything, my friend," Paul whispers sarcastically I push past hi up the stairs, the glowing orange tip of another cigarette illuh the darkness There&039;s a woman&039;s badly decoht of steps, her neck snapped and her decayed face wedged against the wall She was like us, and that ie I step over the corpse and start to cli pointlessly if she fell or if she was pushed

For a fewup and down along the entire length of this dark and otherwise silent stairwell Wetwo steps at a tinore It&039;s a perverse reality of my situation: I eat scraps, survive out in the open, and live from day to day, but I&039;m in better shape than I&039;ve ever been The others are the sa and powerful, my body lean, toned, and efficient Makeswas available to me on a plate and all I had to worry about was e to fuck everything up so badly? TheI wish this had happened to o

"How far?" Carol shouts down fro," I answer We&039;re o, I think, the safer we&039;ll be

"Wait," Keith yells I stop cli and turn back He&039;s still a floor below runts breathlessly as he pushes past and starts heading back down again I follow hiht (of eleven or twelve, I think) This floor is different from the others I passed it too quickly to notice, but the doors leading fro here have been boarded up There&039;s plenty of broken glass and other debris around here, but it doesn&039;t look like the barrier has been breached

"This has been done froly obvious

"So there ht still be someone in there," Carol adds, equally pointlessly

"Must be Unchanged," Paul says under his breath as he runs his hands over the large sheets of plywood that have been nailed to the inside of the door fra to find a weak spot He finds one near the bottoht-hand corner where the door fralass with his feet, then sits down on his backside and pushes the board with his boot When it htly he beckons for me to help him I position myself directly between him and the handrail of the staircase so he can&039;t move backward, then brace myself as he starts to kick at the wood The noise is s, but in theelse rely quiet He&039;s barely forced open a wide enough gap when he turns around, drops his backpack, and scrah Once on the other side he pulls at the plywood and es to yank away a piece about a yard square I slide his bag through, then follow hi on an e There are three apart, one on the other Two of them are open I quickly check one over Its three ed There&039;s even the stale, mold-covered remains of a final untouched meal on a table in front of a lifeless TV The owner of the aparted out) in a hurry Keith disappears into the other open apart after a few seconds

"Nothing," he says quietly, "just a corpse on a bed"

"On a bed?" Carol says, surprised

"Someone&039;s laid out theirDressed her up nice and brushed her hair Still looks fucking horrible"

"Very touching," Paul ainst the closed door of the reently, but it doesn&039;t est, my axe ready in my hand He thumps it pointlessly, then nods his head andofthe air as I rabsit down

"Listen"

I do as he says, but I can&039;t hear anything I try to pull lares at me

"I hear it," Carol whispers Then I do, too A quiet,at us from deep inside the apartment

"Not my" it shouts, the third word unclear

"Not ests

"Nothis shoulders "Get the door open, et him killed It&039;s just so the blade down again and again until the ood splinters and the lock gives I kick it open and peer into the gloo in ice white light like a cah forat the far end of a short hall on the other side of the door I catch a glimpse of his motionless outline, or hers, directly ahead The door sloings shut again

"How many?" Carol asks

"Just one that I can see," I answer "Pass ht, Keith"

Keith switches on the flashlight, but before he can pass it to ure throws itself at me The force of the sudden, unexpected attack takes er back, and before I knohat&039;s happening, I&039;ht on top of rabs the collar of my coat and lowers his face until it&039;s just inches fro ht," he shouts, peppering ht-"

Keith s hi not to laugh at his own joke The ets up and stupidly starts walking back toward Keith again

"Notdown his face "Leave ht Get out of here"

Keith lunges forward again, flashlight held ready to strike, sensing the kill

"He&039;s one of us, Keith," Carol warns, but it&039;s too late He swings the flashlight around and sround, and this tiht down Christ, Carol&039;s right He was one of ours Keith looks at hioes into the apartment

The small, squalid place is like a cocoon The door I broke down hadn&039;t been opened for weeks The air is musty and stale, and the rooms are filled with boxes of supplies On closer inspection, we find that almost all of the supplies have been used up The deadhardly had any food left

"He&039;d done well to last this long," Paul says, watching h more e the flashlight clean on a floral curtain, then opening a door into another roo around it, "people like that are as bad as the Unchanged Not fighting with us is alainst us You don&039;t have a choice whether or not you want to be a part of this war There&039;s no opt-out clause for anyone"

"That was his wife, you know," Paul says, following me out onto a small veranda that overlooks what&039;s left ofsouy Keith did in, that was hison the bed next door"

"How d&039;you know?"

"Found a photo of the pair of theether Lovely couple," he murmurs sarcastically

"Was she like us?"

"Nah, one of theo?"

"Looks that way Probably killed her, then regretted it True love, eh?" he jokes "Never runs s My other half was"

"I know Bad luck, man"

"What about you?"

"Good question"

"What do you irlfriend for three years now Then all this happened"

"Was she Unchanged?"

"No, nothing like that We stuck together for a while after the Change, then just drifted apart Just didn&039;t need each other like we used to"

I glance across at hih balcony next to uess relationships and stuff like that have had to take a backseat with all this going on"

"You&039;re not wrong," he sighs "You knoas thinking the other day, I haven&039;t had a hard-on for weeks"

"Thanks for sharing"

"I&039;," he says quickly "It just hadn&039;t occurred toabout sex, stopped looking at women hope to God this is just teh I don&039;t bother telling him It&039;s just a question of priorities, I expect When the fighting&039;s over, things will get back to norain

I look out toward the city center in the distance, glowing like the ee beauty to the devastation tonight This place always seely and oppressive to s I used to look straight through The Hate has opened h-rise-the place I used to call hoely silent, just a few sh the early evening gloo There are clouds loo up the stars There&039;s rain co?" Paul asks after a couple ofabout my dick, I hope!"