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The condition of the three sleepwalkers we’d seen so far explained eren’t being rushed: they had been ot to us The human body is exquisitely adapted to its environrasp and eyes to see It is capable of coht But it’s not very well designed for roa barefoot on broken glass because it no longer understands shoes, eating whatever rotten, stinking things it can find because it no longer understands the concepts of "food poisoning" or "indigestible" The sleepwalkers had beenapart people who didn’t have ied to awaken yet, with their bare hands Now they were just… sad They were sad, broken things that had once been people and were never going to be people again Even the ones like the wo and coherent thought--enough to plan, enough to hang back and assess the situation reasonably--were too broken to be fixed

Beverly tugged on her leash as alked, clearly uneasy and eager to be so e part of my mind that said "sleepwalkers here" was quiescent We were safe, for now That didn’t

"There should be a restroom or staff break room at the ferry launch," said Nathan He pitched his voice as low as he could, trying to keep it fro the local sleepwalkers as to our location "We can get you cleaned up before we head for San Francisco"

I grimaced The blood had dried on my cheeks and throat; it cracked and pulled whenever I moved my head "We can’t afford to waste the ti to pretend that it’s just pasta sauce, but that’s sort of hard," I murmured "It sure doesn’t s food That doesn’t lanced around us, assessing the nearby buildings It was almost automatic now, for both of us, and that hurt o for walks because anted to be together, anted to relax and enjoy each other’s company, anted tofor cover and planning escape routes, like a failure to know exactly how to get out of every situation could be fatal

To be fair, it probably could

At least Dr Banks was staying quiet I turnedthe buildings around us and I knew that there were no sleepwalkers close enough to worry about I’d been afraid that Dr Banks would blow our position just for the sake of screwing us over, but he wasas carefully as the rest of us, and his cheeks were pale and tight with strain It looked al deep and slow andentirely beneath the surface A subclinical understanding

And then I realized what it had to be "You’ve been in your lab this whole tih for him to hearthat it’s all a video game so he doesn’t have to deal with how real it is"

"I’," said Fishy

Dr Banks didn’t say anything

Beverly started to growl

All heads swung toward the dog, and Nathan asked, cautiously, "Sal…?"

"I’ up on any sleepwalkers, but I’ in my throat, still unacco the world seely quiet, like it had been stripped of its sound track for the first time in my life "They could be all around us and if the as blowing the wrong way, Ito die,"off was as around us, which turned it fro crack that bounced off walls and vibrated against s until it seele direction; it came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time The same couldn’t be said of the bullet, which slammed down into the pavement in front of Fishy’s feet with the accuracy of a sharpshooter--orwildly at the intruders in their dangerous, postapocalyptic world

"Shit," snarled Fishy "It’s not sleepwalkers, it’s survivors Run!" And with that, he was inDr Banks had no choice but to keep up, and thatleft alone and unarmed in the streets of Vallejo

My tiood, unbelievable as those words sounded even inside my own head: before he’d taken me captive, I would never have been able to handle a dead sprint down a deserted, debris-cluttered road Now I kept up with ease, running alongside Beverly rather than being towed along in her wake It was Nathan who fell slightly behind, forcing me to shorten my steps rather than leave hiunshots, as o down the avenue like thunder We kept running, and when Fishy shouted, "Left!" we turned, pounding down a s more than the barest shreds of speed