PRESTON STARES AT ME intently. What the hell is he thinking? So he knows that Ellis is one of us, so what? Why should that make any difference to him? Whatever the reason, his tone has definitely changed. He’s suddenly more serious and direct. He left the van momentarily to speak to someone, then came back and pulled the door shut. It’s suffocatingly hot in here now.

“Tell me about her, Danny.”

I don’t like this. I’ll drip-feed him information and find out why he wants to know. Years of living in the old world have taken their toll, and my guard is up. Part of me can’t help wondering whether I’ve managed to stumble on the last remaining pedophile ring in existence. When I don’t answer he asks another question.

“How old?”

“Just turned five.”

“And you think you know where she might be?”

“Possibly,” I answer quickly. I can afford to give him some vague details. Even if I knew exactly where Ellis was, I could tell him anything. He doesn’t know anything about her. He doesn’t know what she looks like. Christ, I haven’t even told him her name.

“She somewhere near here?”

“Might be.”

Preston leans over to the front seat and picks up a map, which he unfolds.

“Show me.”

“I’m not telling you anything until you tell me why you’re so interested in my daughter. What are you, some kind of pervert? A kiddie-fiddler?”

His face remains impassive and serious. There’s not a flicker of emotion.

“It’s not just your daughter we’re interested in,” he finally starts to explain. “Our belief is that children are key to our future. They’re important now, and they’ll be even more crucial when this war’s won.”

“Go on.”

“Have you ever seen a child fight? They’re fast, strong, agile… completely uninhibited. They’re not burdened with years and years of memories of the old way of things; all they know is now. They accept what they see and experience today, and they accept it without question. This is their normality.”

What he says makes some kind of sense, but I don’t trust this guy. His slimy, slick way of speaking immediately gets my back up. He comes across like a politician, a subpar spin doctor. I know we’re both fighting on the same side, but how different are our aims and objectives?

“You talk a lot, but you’re not actually saying anything. Why should I tell you anything about my little girl?”

“Kids are true fighters, Danny, perfect fighters even. Brutes are strong and aggressive, but children are something else entirely. I think-”

He stops speaking suddenly, almost as if he’s not sure I can be trusted. I press him, keen to hear what he has to say. He runs his fingers through his greasy, slicked-back black hair.

“I think the line between us and the Unchanged starts to blur when you’re looking at very young children. Like I said, they don’t carry the baggage and the memories we do. Given the right stimulation and provocation, I think even an Unchanged kid could be taught to fight like us.”

There’s another silence as we both think about what he’s just said. My initial reaction is that it’s probably bullshit, but he might just have a point. A young kid growing up surrounded by all this madness wouldn’t know any different. They’d have to learn to fight to survive, whatever their initial allegiance.

“I got separated from my family when the Change happened to me,” I tell him, deciding I’ve got nothing to lose from opening up a little more as long as I’m sparing with the details. I take the map from him and tap my finger on the area where I used to live. “I last saw them here, but my partner managed to get away with the kids.”

“Kids? More than one?”

“Two sons and a daughter. It’s only Ellis I’m interested in.”

“That’s your little girl?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t be so quick to write off the other two.”

I slide my finger across the map, then stop.

“I think Lizzie would have gone to her sister’s house. What are these marks?”

Two circles have been drawn on the map, both centered on the main part of town. Both my apartment and Lizzie’s sister’s house are just outside the outermost circle. Preston explains.

“Like Ankin said, the Unchanged have withdrawn into city centers. Our information’s a couple of weeks old, but we think the first circle is the extent of their occupation.”

“What about the second line?”

“The outermost edge of their exclusion zone. It’s a strip of empty land smack between them and everything else, pretty well defended. Makes it that much harder for us to get through unnoticed. It’s not impossible, just a little more difficult.”

“So how does Ankin plan to march an army through no-man’sland without being noticed?”

“He’ll find a way,” Preston answers. He’s not filling me with confidence. I try to steer the conversation back toward Ellis.

“So that’s my plan,” I tell him. “Check the apartment first, then look for Ellis at Lizzie’s sister’s house.”

“And if she’s not there?”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead. I don’t want to.”

Preston folds up the map and thinks for a moment.

“What if I said we could help you?”

“Help me? How?”

“We’ve got a group of people heading out that way later today, looking for more recruits. You could go with them. You’ll have more chance if you go with our support.”

“And what’s in it for you?”

“There are just two conditions,” he announces ominously. “First, if you don’t find your girl, you forget about her and come back here and fight with us. Second, if you do find her, you both come back to us and fight.”

I COULD’VE HAD ALL three of them,” Adam says, his voice weak and frail but somehow still filled with adrenaline-fueled enthusiasm and excitement. “I didn’t need your help. I’d have been perfectly fine if you hadn’t come back-”

“Sure you would,” I interrupt. “You’re full of shit, do you know that?”

“You’re the one who’s full of shit.” He laughs. “You were the one hiding up a ladder!”

“I wasn’t hiding-”

He coughs and laughs again, showering his bare chest with speckles of blood. There’s no two ways about it, he’s on his way out. His breathing is increasingly shallow and uneven. He was already severely weakened by the injuries inflicted by his dad and the subsequent untreated infections, and the brutal beating he took this morning did more than enough damage to push his broken body into total submission. He’s covered in bruises and swellings. He’s hardly moved in hours, and his condition is continuing to steadily worsen.

It’s another swelteringly hot day. The air is dry, and the relentless heat makes the smell of thousands of badly decayed corpses even harder to stomach. The insect population is flourishing. It’s hard to take a breath without sucking in a lungful of buzzing little fuckers. We’re not heading into town until after dark, so there’s nothing to do for the next few hours except try to relax and ready myself for the next fight.

“Need a drink,” Adam gasps. I grab a half-empty plastic bottle of water and hold it up to his chapped lips. He tries to swallow, but most of it runs down his chin. He coughs again and winces with sudden pain, but he doesn’t complain. Unbelievably, he’s still fired up by the rush of battle. Poor bastard’s completely oblivious to the fact he’ll probably be dead before the morning.

“Next time,” he says, every word an effort, “I’m gonna aim straight for the head, know what I’m saying?”

I nod. I don’t have the heart to tell him there’s not going to be a next time.

“I know,” I lie.

“See,” he continues, trying to prop himself up on his elbows but immediately dropping back down again, “they’ll look at me and think that because my arm and leg are fucked, I’ll be a pushover. But they’ll be wrong…”

His eyelids flutter closed, and just for a second I think he’s gone. I reach out to check his pulse, but he bats me away when I touch his skin and mumbles something unintelligible. He’s like an animal, blissfully unaware of his own mortality, convinced he’s going to go on and on and on. In a way I can’t help but envy his ignorance. He fades into unconsciousness.