An hour before Greg Dermont was shot down in the streets of Andover, Sam had sent Tony and Orosco to scout out the small town. So far that strategy had paid off since their group was now thirty strong and the advanced scouting party could get close to towns undetected, size up the situation (especially the zombie population), and report back to the larger group anything they needed to know to assess if entering any given town was worth pursuing or avoiding.
Orosco had his highway map spread out across the hood of an abandoned Jeep. “Looks like one main highway that leads straight into the heart of town, my man,” he said. “Not much to it. But it is located near a state park with a large lake. We could probably score big on camping supplies.”
Tony was watching the quiet two-lane road. There was very little zombie resistance in this area, which could mean that the dead had already killed everyone, exhausted their food supply, and had moved on, or, they were territorial and staying close to town. This was a pattern they’d already seen in several places. Sam believed it had something to do with their strong sense of smell and that the blood kept them around even after everyone was dead. Tony suspected that it might be more and that perhaps the dead could remember parts of their old lives, even if they no longer understood those memories. He’d said, “Perhaps the dead always head home?” No one found Tony’s theory plausible… or the thought of it being true was just too terrifying to consider. No one wanted to believe that dead family members and friends might return home to kill off their remaining relatives. The implications would feed nightmares for a long, long time, considering that so many people had no idea if their own families were still alive, dead, or now something far worse. When the nights ran exceptionally long, Tony was forced to wonder what he would do if he ever found Gina, dead and monstrous, like so many others who were randomly affected by The Change.
“Earth to planet Tony,” Orosco kidded. “Do you copy… over?”
Tony flashed the black man a smile and said, “Sorry. I’m a millions miles away this morning.”
“Gina again?”
Tony sighed. “Always, my friend. What were you saying about the town?”
“Just another shit-hole little town… not important. Are you still thinking about leaving us?”
“You know I have to,” Tony said. “She’s out there somewhere and I have to find her. You all have each other now. You certainly don’t need me.”
“Yeah we do, my man. You’re a light in this long, dark tunnel we’re in and you remind us what we’re trying to get back to. Sam… hell… she’s just a survivor with enough hard edges to keep us alive. She’s a good leader and a provider and all that jazz… but you, Tony… you feed us the hope.”
Tony didn’t know what to say. Ever since they started finding people up north in the farmland areas, they all started looking to him when life got hard. Tony would remind them of the good things, or he’d make them laugh or tell stories around the campfires when the nights stole sleep. They drew strength from him, but in truth, it was he who drew strength from them… the community. And Sam knew how vital he was to the group. Every time he told her he was leaving, she’d lay on the guilt and tell him that these people needed him. ‘Stay a little longer, Tony… just help me get them to safety, Tony… they need you more than ever, Tony…’ whatever it took for her to keep him around a little longer. But now that they were headed back south, he had to try to break away and find Gina… but he had no idea where to start. And Sam was good for pointing that out all the time. ‘Just stay and help me get them to a safe place, Tony, and then I’ll go help you find her myself’.
Yeah, right.
Just then, a lone shot echoed across the nearby woods.
Tony and Orosco immediately found cover behind their Jeep.
“Sounds farther off,” Orosco said. “Maybe coming from Andover.”
Before they could speculate further, several more shots rang out, making it clear that Andover was definitely the source.
“Some kind of firefight,” Orosco said. “Looks like we cross this town off the list.”
“Hold on,” Tony said. “The gunfire could mean anything. Perhaps the town is secure and they’re taking out the dead.”
“Could also mean they’re dangerous and whoever they are wouldn’t mind taking shots at our group as well.”
Tony nodded. “That is possible.”
“What do you say?”
Tony looked at the black man and said, “Let’s get a closer look and then decide. What’s your map say about the woods, can we cut across and get close without being spotted?”
Orosco pulled out a compass, took a bearing, and then pointed off the road and to the left. “If we head southeast through there, we’ll come up near the east end of town, near that big-ass lake. Lots of tree cover over that way.”
“Let’s do it,” Tony said.
The two men entered the woods and headed toward the small town.
The gunfire had ceased.
“Maybe it’s over,” Orosco suggested. He started laughing at himself. “Did you know that every time I enter the woods, I’m still looking for traps?”
Tony understood completely. “I get it. For me, it’s the trees. I’m still expecting to find dead things strapped to the fucking trees.”
“Yeah,” Orosco said, “I guess we’ll never shake that place.”
“It’s probably good that we don’t forget,” Tony said. “We need to always remember that there’s more than zombies to worry about out here.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
Both men walked on in silence, each reliving their nightmare escape from Micom’s death camp…
~~~
…Tony stumbled through the darkness as tree branches scratched at his face, the tortured screams of the refugees from all around him tearing into his soul. He’d lost everyone… Sam… Orosco… the woman praying beside him a short while ago… everyone. He wanted to call out to anyone trying to fight the night, but that was suicide. He focused on the sound of the river instead, trying to keep his sanity intact. The fear was overwhelming.
Creatures hunted the night, slaughtering without discrimination, without remorse… and he could do nothing to stop it. All Tony could do was run. When his death arrived, he would not even see it as the monsters simply caught up to him, dragged him to the earth… and feasted.
They were no longer howling like before. Their silence was much more terrifying.
No… not like this, Tony thought. I will not die in this fucking nightmare forest!
He heard something moving through the brush ahead of him.
Fuck! They’ve found me already!
It was moving toward him, cutting him off from the only bearing he could maintain in the dark. He needed to reach the river. Any other direction would lead him to the enemy as he endlessly circled the woods in vain.
Tony decided to charge the beast and perhaps catch it by surprise. He sprinted through the brush, expecting to strike a tree at any moment. His hope was to tackle the monster, land a solid punch, and keep on running.
He nearly growled when he jumped toward the rustling sound… and landed on Sam.
“Tony? What the fuck are you doing?” she whispered after she reached out and touched her attacker. She felt like a blind person trying to rely upon another sense. Her eyes were useless liars in the dark.
Tony eased up and rolled off of Sam. He was immediately relieved that he’d found someone else.
“They’re slaughtering everyone,” he said. “I keep hearing someone different scream every few minutes.”
Sam put a hand over his mouth and hissed, “Be quiet!” She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the river. “This way,” was all she said.
A few minutes later, they reached the bank of the river. Tony could now see the dark outline of the former police officer as she led him behind cover and squatted down behind a large object. He saw two other forms crouched down as well.
“We can talk here,” Sam said. “The river should mask our sounds.”
“Hey, Tony,” a familiar voice said. It was Orosco.
The other person was a woman Tony had not met before.
“I heard you moving toward the river,” Sam explained. “Your sounds were erratic and clumsy… like the rest of us… I knew you had to be one of us so I went in to fetch you. The other ones… they don’t make sounds.”
Tony could see the sky overhead as faint traces of dawn began to set the clouds on fire. He could see Sam now as well as the others. But that meant that the monsters could see them, too.
Tony looked at the large object they were hiding behind. It was roots mixed with clogs of dirt from the trunk of a large tree which had fallen over across the river.
The alarms were going off in Tony’s brain as he realized where they were. He turned around and followed the trunk to the rest of the fallen tree which spanned the river. He couldn’t see it yet, but he knew the pool was there… and the bodies.
He immediately thought back to what Sam had said when he told them about the pool: “I believe those bodies you stumbled upon is where they… store their kills.”
“We can’t stay here,” he said.
“Relax, my man,” Orosco said. “We’ll just wait until we have enough light to move, and then we’ll split.”
“No. You don’t understand.” Tony looked around anxiously. He could see the floating corpses now. He pointed toward the pool and finished, “This is where they dump the bodies.”
The others looked and saw the remains of people floating in a large pool which had been created by the fallen tree.
“Oh, shit,” the woman said, covering her mouth. “We’re all going to die!”
“Angela, right?” Sam said addressing the woman. “You keep talking that way, Angela, and I’ll put you in there myself.” She looked unsure of what to do now.
Tony got her attention. “They haven’t come this way yet… but you know they will. Listen. I can’t hear anyone screaming anymore. Soon they’ll think we’re all dead and then they’ll drag the bodies… here.”
“He’s right,” Orosco added, staring at the tree. “This is probably where they came from. I’ll wager they use this tree as a bridge and that their den—for lack of a better word—is close by.”
“The waterfall,” Tony reminded him. “They have a cave… I’ve seen them use it.”
Sam nodded. “That’s right. They use the river. Farther upstream is their cave. Back the other way, where we came from, this river borders our camp. That’s where Micom planned to send the rest of us for our death sentences, I’m sure.”
“This damn river is also how Tony got in undetected,” Orosco added. “It’s like we talked about, they ain’t looking in their backyard… because that would be the worst place to be.”
Angela stood up and said, “Then what are we waiting for? You said it yourself, we’re dead if we stay here!”
“Calm down,” Sam said.
Angela was already scoping out the tree line on the other side of the river. “We could go in there. There’s enough light to see. We can stay quiet and keep going!”
“We don’t know what’s in those woods, girl,” Orosco said. “We need to think this through before-”
Angela was already moving. She slipped out around the tree trunk and started climbing up on the tree.
“Get back here!” Sam hissed.
The woman was beyond reasoning, driven by her fear. She crossed the tree on her hands and knees, nearly falling into the river several times.
The others watched her make it to the opposite side of the river where she began to scale a steep embankment.
“Damn fool girl is going to tell them exactly where we are,” Orosco said.
Angela cleared the bank and began to run into the woods. Her panicked movements through the forest were amplified in the silent dark.
“We can only hope that she doesn’t double back and give us away now. Maybe she’ll draw them off,” Sam hoped.
Tony gave her a disapproving glare. “Again… you’re some kind of cop.”
She ignored him. Sam was staring at the bodies.
They heard Angela’s strangled screams from somewhere out in that dark forest.
“Damn,” Orosco whispered. He was trembling. “They’re… they’re everywhere.”
“It won’t take them long to figure out how she crossed the river,” Tony said. “We need to find something to fight with… sticks and fucking stones if we have to.”
As if on cue, the woods on both sides of the river began to come alive as shuffling sounds could be heard over snapping branches and dead leaves.
“Fuck, they don’t care about stealth anymore. They think it’s over.” Tony picked up a large stone from near the pool.
“If Tony’s right, they’ll be coming here to… feed.” Orosco tried to find somewhere to hide, wishing he could simply merge with the roots and dirt and become invisible.
Dawn was quickly approaching. Soon their hiding spot would be exposed. “Wait,” Sam said. She turned to them and finished, “Angela was the last one. It’s getting light out now, and they’re finishing up the rest of this nasty business. They think she was the last one. That gives us a fucking chance!”
Tony shook his head. “That’s great, Sam, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re coming down here. We’re fucked.”
“No… we’re dead already… at least, that’s how it’s going to appear.” She pointed toward the pool of bodies. “We’ll hide in there.”
Tony and Orosco stared at the lifeless bodies decomposing in the pool. They looked hideous; pale and bloated. Many of them still had their eyes wide open, capturing the last moments of terror on their faces before the end.
Sam crouched down, studying the pool of bodies, trying to ignore the sounds of the approaching Shadow Dead. “There’s a gap just between the tree and the water where all the bodies have been pushed into by the current. If we get in there, behind the bodies, they won’t see us.” She hesitated and then began to step into the pool. The water was cold, but fortunately it wasn’t freezing yet. If it was month later, hypothermia would’ve killed her plan. She stepped in up to the center of the pool, trying to ignore the corpses she pushed aside and the buzzing flies she had disturbed. The water reached the middle of her thighs. She turned and gave them an impatient look.
The others were staring at her, unable to process her crazy plan as slain men, woman and children stared back at them from the pool.
“What are you waiting for?” she said. “It’s deep enough. We can do this.”
The Shadow Dead were very close now. Once they cleared the woods they would find three more victims to feast upon.
Tony and Orosco stepped into the pool and joined Samantha near the base of the large tree. They had to grab at clammy skin as they wadded through the bodies, which were pushed up on top of each other against the gap. There was just enough room beneath the tree for the three of them to keep their heads above water as the current pushed the bodies back up against the tree. They had to fight for purchase at the bottom of the river as the strong current tried to push them under and out the other side. Fortunately, there was a large branch sticking into the water, which they were able to use to brace themselves and stay in position.
The water was cold, but no one cared after they felt the tree vibrate. The Shadow Dead from the opposite side of the river were using it to cross.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Tony felt helpless as he tried to maintain his grip on the slick branch beneath the water while trying to keep his feet from losing purchase on the bottom. He stared into the terrified faces of Sam and Orosco, now reduced to three bobbling heads in the half-light of dawn, as they all tried to control their breathing and keep from moving as much as possible.
They gave up trying to see their enemy as the faces of a small boy, an older woman, and a bearded man pressed up against the tree like some sickening human wall. They could hear movement all about them now–from around the pool, above them on the tree, and on both sides of the river.
A loud splashing sound almost made Sam scream out as the Shadow Dead began tossing the bodies of the refugees into the pool.
All they could do was wait… and count the splashes.
Sam closed her eyes and prepared herself for the heart-piercing sounds of flesh being ripped apart by savage teeth.
When the splashes finally stopped, they heard nothing for what felt like an eternity, as each of them could picture the Shadow Dead waiting for them to come out from beneath the tree.
If this isn’t hell… I don’t know what is, Sam thought.
And then all at once, the Shadow Dead started moving away… quickly… as if they were late for their next slaughter. It sounded like they were heading down river… toward the camp… and then the monsters went silent once more.
There were no more splashes, no grotesque sounds of flesh being consumed… just the indifferent rush of the river which continued to push them out of hiding.
The dim morning light pierced through the wall of bodies and Tony risked moving the bearded man’s head down to get a look at the pool. He saw nothing but new bodies… some he recognized, like the woman whose hand he was holding in the woods. He forced his gaze elsewhere. They appeared to be alone.
Orosco finally broke the silence. “I can’t feel my legs, Sam. I’m going to slip under if we don’t get out of here.”
Tony turned to Sam and nodded. “I think… I think they’re gone.”
Sam had never been so eager to be anywhere else in her whole life. She looked once more at the wall of bodies and the faces which were staring at her, and said, “Let’s get the fuck out of this nightmare before I start screaming like a fucking mad woman.”
They moved their sluggish limbs and cautiously pushed the corpses back until they could see all around them.
As they entered the pool, Tony looked up at the tree bridge, expecting the Shadow Dead to be looming over them. No one was there.
When they reached the bank, they shook from the cool morning air as they tried to restore circulation to their numb limbs.
“Oh… this sucks,” Tony said, trying to stop his chattering teeth.
Sam was already thinking. She stared down river, and said, “They left in a hurry because it’s dawn.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Tony asked irritably.
Orosco’s eyes went wide. “Of course. That makes sense, Sam.” He turned to Tony. “The Shadow Dead are heading to camp because Micolad must have sentenced someone to death… to ‘walk the river’.”
They silently considered the implications.
“Son-of-a-bitch!” Tony said. “Mary?”
Sam would not allow a moment to consider it. She was already moving. “Come on, the longer we stay still, the harder it will be to move. God only knows how much time we have.”
“That poor girl,” Tony said. “We need to stop this… we need to get there and-”
“And what, Tony?” Sam said. “Think about what you’re saying. We can’t help her… hell, we can’t even help ourselves! I counted the splashes… they killed everyone! We’re the only three who made it.”
“Jenkins,” Orosco said, pointing toward a man with a bandana around his head, lying face down in the pool. Right next to him was what remained of Angela. “They got Jenkins… and the girl.”
Sam nodded, trying not to show her frustration. “Yes… like I said, everybody but us. We need to move.”
Orosco wasn’t finished. He couldn’t look away from the refugees in the pool. “They took the time to make sure… to make sure none of them would turn.”
“What was that?” Tony asked.
“Look at their foreheads, they’re all punctured. Looks like a knife wound of some kind. Why the hell would the Shadow Dead take the time to stab our people in the heads?”
The question hung silent in the air.
Samantha had nothing left. She wanted out of these hellish woods. “Let’s move it! Unless you want to fucking join them! Tony, can you remember the way you came in from here?”
“Yes. It was dark but I… but I followed the river to this point. Yes… I can remember the way.” He stood up and grabbed Orosco’s shoulder. “Come on, man. Stop staring at them… it will drive you crazy. We’ll try to figure this out later.”
Orosco gave the big man a nod and got up.
Sam said, “Take the lead, Tony. Get us the fuck out of here… please.”
Tony looked into the cop’s desperate and weary face. For the first time, he saw only a vulnerable woman ready to jump at the first sound. He frowned and thought, She’s right, we can’t even take care of ourselves right now. Save the ones you can. I’m sorry Mary…
He stepped up in front, turned to them both and said, “We’re going to make it. Just keep believing that.” He put one soaked shoe in front of the other and tried to convince himself of his own words.
Tony led them upstream toward the waterfall. When he believed they were close, they all went well around that portion of the river, trying to remain as silent as possible. Once safely past the waterfall, Tony retraced his path, and eventually they found the edge of the ridge where Tony had scaled up. He stopped them well ahead of the line of trees along the top of the ridge with the dead things tied to them. “I triggered some sort of trap near there. I can only assume the whole ridge is full of them. Bastards use these things to either scare off people or distract them long enough to miss the traps… like what happened to me.”
“Probably keeps the other dead things away, too,” Orosco added. “They probably smell their own kind and have no idea that there’s a bunch of folks dying in here at the hands of a madman and his fucking robot.”
Sam and Orosco stared at the dead things strapped to the trees with disgust and outrage. They had heard about this form of ‘punishment’, which Micolad dished out, but seeing it up close made it personal.
“We knew some of these people,” Orosco said. “They were from the original groups which wanted nothing to do with Micom’s bullshit. When they tried to leave… this is what they got for their troubles.” He looked to Tony and finished, “I don’t know which monsters are worse, the Shadow Dead or the puppet masters back at that camp.”
Tony nodded. “I don’t know much about all this… madness… but I do know that there are sick fucks in this wildlife preserve… and sick fucks out there, too. I was held captive by one who lived just on the other side of the freeway.” He paused when he thought about the ‘sick fuck’ who drugged both himself and Gina… before the world went dark. God, please her let be okay, he silently prayed. He forced himself to stop dwelling on it before he went into full panic mode, like Angela, and rushed off to find Gina… only to end up dead. If anything was becoming evident to him in this disturbing new world, it was that no one would last very long alone. He just had to hope that Gina had found help… he had to believe that.
“So the freeway is down there?” Sam asked.
“It took me a long time to get to this ridge, but yes, the freeway is down there in that direction,” Tony said.
“Then that’s the last place we want to be,” Sam said. “We’ll get down off this ridge and head north until we find a safer exit point. I don’t believe the Shadow Dead will stray beyond here. This is the western perimeter… it has to be. We should take the woods north until we find some farmland and that should improve our chances of staying alive a little longer.”
“Agreed,” Tony said. “I barely made it into these woods. There’s a lot more dead things out there than there are in here.”
They slowly maneuvered around the zombies, which lunged out toward them from the trees, while studying the ground for traps. They found several trip wires they carefully avoided.
Once clear of the ridge, they descended into thicker woods but immediately felt safer now that the wildlife preserve was behind them.
They traveled north through the woods using old deer paths until they found a dirt road which took them out of the woods and into an open field. They began to look for a farmhouse—anywhere they might find shelter, food…weapons.
For the moment, although very vulnerable and exposed to the unknown, all three of them took comfort in knowing that they had at least one weapon available: they were not alone…
~~~
…Tony and Orosco watched near the edge of the Lake Pymatuning campgrounds as a large group of the dead started wandering toward town, toward the sound of the gunfire. The entire area reeked of death as they stared in horror at the aftermath of the attack.
“Looks like this happened weeks ago,” Orosco said, studying the carnage of the camp through his binoculars. “Why do the dead continue to stay?”
“They’re not staying put now,” Tony said. “Let’s take advantage of their absence and see if there’s anything worth salvaging.”
Tony and Orosco drew their rifles and moved slowly through the slaughtered community of torn tents, bloodied backpacks and bones… lots of bones… picked clean by the hungry dead which would rather remain and waste away to nothing instead of moving on to find prey elsewhere.
They took turns ducking in and out of bloody, fly-infested tents, but soon found nothing worth the horrific sights they endured.
They were about to give up when Tony spotted one large RV parked discreetly on the edge of the camping area. It was the only one they’d seen which wasn’t blood smeared with broken windows. It looked miraculously overlooked by the dead.
Tony approached the door and nodded to Orosco to stand watch.
Orosco found a ladder at the rear of the large vehicle and climbed up on the roof.
Tony tried the door handle and was surprised to find it unlocked. He opened the door and stood back with his rifle aimed toward the opening. Nothing dead or alive exited the dark vehicle.
Tony slowly stepped up into the RV and was blown away by the grim scene within. An entire family; mother, father, six children ranging from toddlers to teens, and one elderly man, were all spread out in various positions—all slaughtered and in various states of decay. None of them looked like they had tried to flee the vehicle and it was apparent that the deaths had occurred over time and not all at once. There was blood splattered over everything. Most of it had dried up while some looked recently spilled. Tony covered his mouth and turned away. He felt sick to his stomach. He was about to exit the RV but then he heard a scratching sound coming from the rear of the vehicle—from the small bathroom.
No way could anyone still be alive in here!
Tony heard the scratching sound again along with a low moan.
“Shit!” he said, aiming his gun toward the bathroom door.
Whatever was back there responded to his voice and began to pound violently on the door.
Tony backed up and lost his balance, nearly falling into the front of the vehicle.
The bathroom door burst open and a small boy, the youngest of the group, stepped out of the bathroom with his head hung low. It was wearing only pajama bottoms as its pale, thin body was covered in bulging veins, and blood.
Without thinking, Tony asked, “Are you… are you alright, little boy?”
The dead think lifted its head, revealing hate-filled hungry yellow eyes. It opened its bloody mouth and screamed at him.
Tony lifted a shaking rifle but was too terrified to think, to aim.
The boy-thing lifted its arms and began to charge toward him.
“Orosco!” Tony yelled. He managed to swing the rifle at the boy’s head, knocking the thing off-balance and back into a fold-up coffee table.
Tony managed to stumble down the RV steps and turned in time to see the boy’s hideous face as it was about to jump on top of him.
Tony lifted his arms to defend himself.
Orosco jumped down from the RV roof and knocked the boy over from behind. He swung his rifle repeatedly at the child’s head until it fell limp on top of Tony.
Tony quickly moved out from under the monstrous child and gave Orosco a grateful nod.
Orosco stood there, with his rifle aimed at the boy-thing, a look of horror and shock on his face. “Did I… did I just kill that boy?”
Tony quickly shook his head. “No… no… it wasn’t him… it wasn’t a boy anymore. Its eyes were filled with that yellowish hell.”
Orosco looked relieved. “You alright?”
Tony stood up and started pacing. “Fuck no!” He looked around and finished, “It’s time to go.”
“Agreed.”
Tony took a few deep breaths and then looked down at the infected child. “Fucking horrible,” he said.
Orosco stepped up beside him and patted him on the shoulder. “At least we know why this RV wasn’t attacked. They don’t like to mix—those yellow-eyed monsters and the reanimated. Maybe someday we’ll understand why.”
“Yeah… long after this fucking nightmare is over and the world’s not crazy anymore.”
They heard more gunfire coming from town.
“Whoever they are, do you think they’re in trouble?” Orosco asked.
Tony looked at the dead child lying on the ground and said, “Of course, they’re in trouble.”
“What do we tell Sam?”
Tony thought about the family in the RV. None of them could kill the child. It cost them dearly. He could not imagine the horror of what it took for them to keep it alive all this time.
“We’ll tell her there are survivors here who need our help,” Tony said.
“And if they’re hostile?”
Tony frowned. “We’re all a little hostile these days… but we still need to try to fucking help each other. We’ve seen enough bad shit to last a lifetime. We gotta try to bring some good out of all this, Orosco.” He looked down at the boy once more and finished, “We gotta take a chance on each other and hope these people want what we want.”
“I hear you, man, but it ain’t civilized out there anymore.”
Tony gave him a stern look and said, “Then we make it fucking civilized! If anyone needs to be reminded of why we need that back, then I’ll drag them down to this horrible place and show them what’s inside that RV!”
Orosco nodded. “I’ll thank you very much if you spare me that, my man. Like you said, we’ve seen enough bad shit already.”
Tony smiled and said, “We’re going to make this better… I don’t know how yet… but we will.”
Orosco nodded. “I appreciate the optimism, but I ain’t a believer yet.”
“Fair enough. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
They headed back into the woods. Both of them refused to look back at the campgrounds.
Tony tried real hard to remove the image of the terrifying boy from his mind. When nothing worked, he finally thought of Gina’s smiling face and buried the horrible memory beneath his hope of finding her alive, safe, and untainted by this terrifying new world.
~~~