“So where are we?”

“Close to where I used to live.”

“So why do you want to go back there?”

“What?” I mumble, distracted.

“Back home? Why do you want to go home?”

“I lost my daughter, and I want to find her again,” I tell him. “She’s like us.”

He nods his head thoughtfully. Then, from out of nowhere, a huge grin spreads across his tired, sweat-streaked face.

“So how many did you kill today, Dan?”

“Two, I think. You?”

“Beat you! I got three. You should have seen the last one. Speared the fucker on my stick. Took more effort to pull it out again than it did to skewer him!”

“Nice.”

“I tell you, man,” he continues, the tiredness gone and his voice suddenly full of energy and enthusiasm, “it’s the best feeling. When I first see them they scare the hell out of me, but as soon as I’m ready and I’ve got my head together, all I want to do is kill. Does that feeling ever go? Tell me it doesn’t…”

Adam’s still living off the buzz of sudden power and freedom that comes with understanding the Change and experiencing your first few kills. I felt the same when it happened to me. It’ll be a while before he comes down again. It’s like a drug, and we’re like junkies. I don’t get the same highs I used to anymore, just the cravings. The euphoria has faded, and life’s more of a struggle now. It’s getting harder to find food, and I’m tired. The gap between kills is increasing, and all that’s left to do in those gaps is think.

“The feeling doesn’t go,” I answer. “It just changes.”

“Wish I’d been there at the start…”

For a few seconds he’s quiet again, daydreaming about all the opportunities he’s convinced he’s missed. The silence is only temporary while he thinks of the next question to ask.

“So what are we?”

“What do you mean?”

“All I want to do is kill, man. I’m addicted. Am I some kind of vampire?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m not, think about it…”

“Believe me, I have thought about it. We’re not vampires. We don’t drink blood, we just spill it. I like garlic in my food, I’m okay with sunlight, and I can see my reflection in mirrors.”

“You sure? You seen the state of yourself recently?”

I ignore his cheap jibe. He’s right, but he looks no better. It’s months since I cut my hair and weeks since I last shaved. I did manage to wash in a stream yesterday-or was it the day before…?

“What are we, then? Werewolves?”

I shake my head in disbelief. This guy’s relentless. What’s even more disturbing is the fact I’ve already had this conversation with myself and I’ve got my answers prepared. Truth is, at the beginning, there were times I felt more like an animal than a man. In some ways I still do, but now I scavenge more than hunt. Less like a wolf, more like a rat.

“We’re not werewolves. We don’t change when the moon comes out.”

“I know that, you prick,” he says, catching his breath as the toes on his broken foot drag on the ground. I stay quiet for a moment, wondering if I should tell him what I really think or whether it’s just going to pointlessly prolong this stupid conversation.

“Here’s what I reckon,” I say, deciding just to go for it. “You want to compare us to a type of monster? Look at the evidence-”

“What evidence?”

“Look at how we live and what we do.”

“I don’t get you…”

“We drag ourselves around constantly, looking for Unchanged to kill. It’s almost like we’re feeding off them. When you’re killing you feel alive, like you can do anything, but the rest of the time it’s like you’re in limbo. Just existing. Not really living, but not dead either…”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying we’re like zombies,” I finally admit. “Being out here is like being one of the undead.”

He doesn’t react. For a minute everything is quiet and deceptively peaceful, the only sound our slow, uneven footsteps on the dirt track.

“Do you know what I always used to wonder?” he eventually asks.

Do I really want to know?

“What?”

“I used to wonder what happened to the zombies after the end of the film. You know what I’m saying? When all the living have been infected and there’s no one left to kill, what happens next? Does the hunger ever go away, or is rotting all that’s left for them?”

ADAM IS STRUGGLING, HIS battered body a wreck, but he keeps moving. The light’s almost completely gone, and we need to stop. Apart from a single helicopter in the distance and a fast-moving truck a few miles back, we haven’t seen or heard anyone for hours. Things have changed-when the fighting first started there were people everywhere. Maybe it’s because I’m moving at a fraction of my normal pace that the world seems empty? Part of me still thinks I should just dump Adam and go on alone. We’ll find somewhere to stop and rest for the night. When I’m ready to get moving again I’ll decide whether I’m going to take him with me.

“Over there.”

“What?”

“There,” he says, pointing across the road with his badly broken hand. His fingers jut out at unnatural angles, and I can’t see what he’s gesturing at. “Look… through the trees…”

On the opposite side of the road we’re following is a dense forest. I squint into the semidarkness to try to see whatever it is he thinks he’s spotted. He shuffles around and hops away from me, moving toward a gap in the trees that stretches farther into the gloom. I look down and see that there are muddy tire tracks curving onto the road from the mouth of a barely visible track.

“What do you reckon?” he asks.

“Got to be worth a look. There wouldn’t be a track if it didn’t lead somewhere.”

“Might be more of them down there…”

He tries to speed up again, eager to kill, but I pull him back. I’m not sure. This doesn’t feel right. I can see the outline of a large building up ahead on the edge of a clearing, and I cautiously edge closer. The building is huge and box-shaped, like a warehouse-but why here out in the middle of nowhere? I take another few steps forward, and realization slowly begins to dawn. Shit, I know what this place is.

“What’s the matter, Dan?”

I don’t answer. Can’t answer. My mouth’s suddenly dry, and my legs feel like lead. I should turn around and walk away, but I don’t, and I keep moving forward on autopilot, my mind racing. We enter a dusty, gravel-covered yard, lines of mazelike wooden barriers making it look like a deserted, out-of-season tourist attraction. Up ahead the building’s doors hang open like a gaping mouth.

“What is this?”

“You don’t know?”

He shrugs his shoulders.

“Should I?”

“Slaughterhouse.”

Adam leans against the nearest barrier and works his way along it toward the open door.

“You told me about these places, but I…”

“What? You didn’t believe me?”

“It’s not that…”

He stops talking and I stop listening. Like a character in a bad horror movie, I walk into the building. It’s almost pitch black inside, but I can see enough to know that we’re in a narrow corridor with a set of heavy double doors directly ahead. It’s musty and damp in here, the faint scents of the forest and wood smoke mixing with the heavy, acrid stench of chemicals and decay. I wish I had a flashlight. The gloom makes it too easy to remember the night I almost died in a place like this. Standing here in the dark I can still see the helpless, terrified faces of the people crammed around me as we were herded like cattle toward the killing chamber. I remember their lost and desperate expressions, the confusion, frustration, and pain so evident. I remember my own terror, convinced I was about to die…

“You okay?” Adam asks, finally catching up and nudging into me from behind. I hadn’t even realized I’d stopped walking. I feel like I’ve stepped out of my body and now I’m watching from a distance. It’s a nauseous, unsettling feeling, like the nervous relief you feel when you walk away without a scratch from a crash that’s just written off your car. You’re thinking, How did I get away with it? How close was I to biting the bullet? and then your mind starts with the “what ifs” and “if onlys”… I know that if I’d have been another hundred or so people farther along the line that night, I’d be a dead man now.