Alec had straightened, his eyes lighting up at the discovery. “I didn’t find a damn thing and I’m just about fed up trying. Let’s go have a look-see at that.”

“I’m worried about the battery running out,” Mark said.

“Yeah, well, all the more reason to study it now, don’t ya think?”

“Let’s do it outside, then. I’m sick of this hunk of junk.”

Mark and Alec huddled over the workpad together, sitting under the shade of a tree as the sun continued to trudge its way across the sky. Mark swore that time slowed down when that thing was up there, beating down on them with its abnormally powerful rays. He had to keep wiping the sweat off his hands as he controlled the screen functions of the workpad.

Workpad. It seemed anything but. Games, books, old news programs that predated the sun flares. There was a personal journal that could provide a ton of interesting information if it had been updated recently. But there wasn’t much work-related stuff on the device.

Until they finally found the mapping feature. It obviously wasn’t functioning from the old GPS satellites-they’d all been destroyed in the radiation holocaust of the sun flares. But it seemed to have a link to a tracer on the Berg, maybe controlled by old-school radar or other shortwave technology. And there was a log of every trip the now ruined ship had taken.

“Look at that,” Alec said, pointing to a spot on the map. Every line tracking the Berg’s flights returned to it eventually. “That’s obviously their headquarters or base or whatever you want to call it. And judging by the coordinates and what I know about this ridge of hills we call home, it can’t be more than fifty or sixty miles away.”

“Maybe it’s an old military base,” Mark offered.

Alec thought about it. “A bunker, maybe. Having something like that would make sense up in the mountains. And we’re going there, boy. Sooner rather than later.”

“Right now?” Mark knew his brain was still jumbled up from being hit during the crash, but surely the old man didn’t want to hike all that way before going back to the settlement.

“No, not right now. We need to get home and sort out what happened there. See if Darnell’s okay. And the others.”

Mark’s heart sank at the mention of Darnell. “You know what we saw on that Berg? The boxes of darts? There’s no way those people went to all that trouble to do a flyby flu ambush.”

“You’re right. I hate it, but you’re right, kid. I don’t expect much good news upon our grand return. But we need to get our butts there all the same. So come on.”

Alec stood up and Mark followed suit, slipping the workpad into the back of his pants. He’d rather return to the village than search for a bunker any day.

They set off, Mark’s head still woozy and achy. But the farther they went, and the more his pulse quickened, the better he felt. Trees and sun and bushes and roots, squirrels and bugs and snakes. The air was warm but fresh, smelling like sap and burnt toast, filling his lungs.

The Berg had taken them a lot farther from home than they’d thought, and they ended up camping in the woods for two nights, resting just long enough to feel strong again. Small game hunted by Alec and his knife provided their only food. They finally got close to the settlement in the late afternoon of the third day after the Berg attack.

Mark and the old soldier were about a mile away from the village when the stench of death hit them like a fresh wave of unbearable heat.

CHAPTER 10

The sun was just a few hours from setting when they arrived at the base of the hill below the outlying shacks and huts.

Mark had ripped a wide strip of cloth from the bottom of his shirt to wrap around his nose and mouth. He pressed his hand against it as they came up the last rise before the village. The smell was awful. He could taste it on his tongue-dank, rotten, moldy-all the way to his stomach, as if he’d swallowed something that had begun to decompose. Fighting the urge to throw up, he took one step after another, breathlessly waiting to see what horrors lay in the aftermath of the attack.

Darnell.

Mark had no expectations there, had accepted, with a heavy heart, that his friend might be dead. But what about Trina? Lana? Misty and the Toad? Were they alive? Or sick from some crazy virus? He stopped when Alec reached a hand out and touched Mark’s chest.

“Okay, listen to me,” the old man said, his voice muffled behind his own swath of fabric. “We need to set some things straight before we get up there. We can’t let our emotions rule everything. No matter what we see, our number one priority has to be saving as many people as possible.”

Mark nodded, then moved to resume walking, but Alec stopped him.

“Mark, I need to know we’re on the same page here.” Alec spoke with a stern scowl-a look that reminded Mark of an upset schoolteacher. “If we go up there and start hugging people and crying and attempting things that make no sense with people who have no chance-all because we’re distraught… it’ll just hurt more folks in the long run. You understand? We need to think long-term. And as selfish as it sounds, we need to protect ourselves first. You get me? Ourselves. Saving the most people means we can’t help anybody if we’re dead.”

Mark looked him in the eyes and saw something rock hard in them. He knew Alec was right. With the workpad, the map and the things they knew about the people on the Berg, it was clear there was something bigger going on.

“Mark?” Alec said, snapping his fingers to get the boy’s attention. “Talk to me, buddy.”

“So what’re you saying?” Mark asked him. “If people look sick-if those darts really made people sick-stay away from them?”

Alec took a step back, his face pinched with an expression Mark didn’t quite get. “When you say it like that, it doesn’t sound so brotherly, but you’re dead-on. We can’t risk getting sick, Mark. We don’t know what we’re going to find up there-what we’re dealing with. I’m just saying that we need to be prepared… and if there’s any doubt about someone…”

“Leave them behind to be eaten by animals,” Mark said with a coldness that he hoped would hurt Alec.

The former soldier just shook his head. “We don’t even know what to expect, boy. Let’s just get up there and see what we see. Find our friends. But don’t be stupid, that’s all I’m saying. Don’t get close to anyone, certainly don’t touch anyone. Keep that cloth wrapped around your pretty little head. Do you understand?”

Mark did. At the very least, it made sense to keep a distance from the people shot with darts. Highly Contagious. The words went through his head again and he knew Alec was right. “I understand. I won’t be stupid. I promise. I’ll follow your lead.”

A look of compassion came across Alec’s face, something Mark hadn’t seen often. There was true kindness in those eyes of his. “We’ve been through hell and back, kid. I know it. But it’s toughened us up, right? We can do what it takes to live through one more challenge.” He glanced up the path toward the village. “Let’s hope our friends are okay.”

“Let’s hope,” Mark repeated. He tightened the cloth mask around his face.

Alec gave him a stiff nod-professional again-and started up the hill. Mark pulled himself together, swearing to put emotions aside for now, and followed.

They’d just crested the hill when the source of the horrific smell came clearly into view.

So many bodies.

On the very outskirts of the village, there was a large, simple wooden structure originally meant to provide cover in a rainstorm, then, when more solid buildings were built, to store things temporarily. It had three walls and an open front. A thatched roof had been layered with mud to keep the inside as dry as possible. Everyone called it the Leaner because, despite being pretty sturdy, it looked like it was tilting down the slope of the mountain.