The gate was halfway open. Hundreds of infected waited beyond it. For one impossible second, no one in Grayhaven moved.
The returning patrol stood in the widening gap, six blood-soaked figures arranged shoulder to shoulder. Behind them, the forest shifted with bodies. Pale faces appeared between the trees. Broken hands reached through the undergrowth. The horde stretched across the road and disappeared into the darkness on both sides. The hunter at the front smiled at Lillian.
“Lillian Ashcroft,” he repeated. His voice was clear. Not human. But clear.
Commander Holt drew his pistol.
“Close the gate!”
The guards at the mechanism threw their weight against the emergency lever. Nothing happened. The gears continued to turn beneath the yard with a deep metallic grind.
Jonah raised his rifle. “The controls are jammed.”
“No,” Lillian said.
Her eyes moved to the six hunters. One of them wore a leather tool belt. The bolt cutters hanging from it were wet with blood.
“They sabotaged it.”
The lead hunter stepped through the opening. Lillian recognized him. Peter Graves.
He had left Grayhaven three days earlier with five others to inspect a collapsed watch post near the northern ridge. Peter had taught children how to set rabbit snares. He had repaired half the roofs in the eastern quarter. He had once spent an entire winter carving toys from fence posts because there had been nothing else to give the settlement’s children.
Now his eyes were black. Not clouded like ordinary infected. Black from edge to edge. Holt aimed at his head.
“Peter.”
The thing wearing Peter’s face tilted its head.
“Holt.”
A murmur moved through the courtyard. It knew him too. Holt’s finger tightened around the trigger.
Peter’s smile widened. “Still giving orders.”
Holt fired. Peter moved before the shot. The bullet passed through the space where his head had been and struck one of the infected behind him. The corpse dropped. Peter straightened.
“Still missing.”
Then he screamed. The horde charged. The sound struck Grayhaven like a physical blow. Hundreds of infected broke from the tree line and poured toward the gate. Some ran upright. Others moved on all fours. Several slammed into abandoned vehicles and climbed over them without slowing.
“Barricade!” Holt shouted. “Form a line!”
Hunters rushed into position.
Lillian grabbed a guard by the shoulder.
“Get the civilians underground.”
“The shelters are already full.”
“Then put them in the cell blocks and lock every door.”
“What about the wounded?”
“Move them first.”
The first infected reached the gate. Peter and the other returned hunters stepped aside as the horde flooded through.
Grayhaven opened fire. The night became muzzle flashes and screaming. The front rank of infected fell beneath the volley, but the bodies only slowed those behind them. The dead climbed over one another, crushing the fallen beneath their feet. Lillian drew her axe.
“Jonah, left side!” They split.
An infected woman in a torn wedding dress came through the gate with half her jaw missing. Lillian stepped inside the reach of her arms and struck upward. The axe entered beneath the chin. Bone broke. Lillian kicked the body backward into the horde, knocking two others down.
Jonah fired beside her. A man’s skull burst. Another infected seized the rifle barrel and pulled. Jonah stumbled forward. Lillian severed the creature’s wrist. Jonah drove the stock into its face and fired through its mouth.
“Reloading!” he shouted.
“Make it fast.”
The returning patrol moved through the chaos without attacking. They were searching. Their black eyes passed over guards, civilians, and fallen infected. Every face turned toward Lillian.
Peter pointed. “There.”
The five others began moving toward her. Not rushing. Hunting. Lillian backed toward the inner yard.
“They’re coming for me.”
Jonah slammed a fresh magazine into his rifle. “Get in line.”
“We can’t let them pull the horde deeper.”
“It’s already inside.”
“Not all of it.”
She looked toward the gatehouse. The opening was nearly wide enough for a wagon now. The mechanism sat inside a reinforced room beside the wall, accessible by a narrow staircase. Two infected had reached the steps. A guard tried to stop them. One tore into his shoulder while the other climbed over his body.
Lillian pointed. “If we can release the counterweight, the doors will close.”
Jonah glanced at the approaching patrol. “And trap half the horde inside with us.”
“Half is better than all.”
“That’s a terrible calculation.”
“It’s the only one we have.”
Peter was twenty yards away. He stepped over a wounded Grayhaven guard without looking down. The guard raised a pistol and fired into Peter’s chest.
Peter stopped. He looked at the holes in his coat. Then he bent, seized the guard by the throat, and lifted him from the ground. The guard kicked helplessly. Peter turned him toward Lillian.
“Come here,” he called.
Lillian did not move. Peter tightened his grip. The guard’s face darkened.
“Let him go.”
Peter smiled.
“You remember.”
The words hit her harder than they should have.
“Remember what?”
Peter’s black eyes flicked to the brass key in her hand. She had forgotten she was still holding it.
“Home.”
He crushed the guard’s throat. The body went limp. Peter dropped him. Lillian’s fear became rage. She ran at him.
“Lillian!” Jonah shouted.
Peter opened his arms as though welcoming her. She swung for his neck. He caught the axe handle. The impact stopped so violently that pain shot through both her shoulders. Peter’s grip was impossibly strong.
“You’re older,” he said.
His breath smelled of rot and stagnant water. Lillian twisted the handle. He did not release it.
“So are you.”
She drove her boot into his knee. The joint bent backward with a wet crack. Peter glanced down at it. No pain. No surprise. Then he headbutted her.
Light exploded behind Lillian’s eyes. She hit the ground. Peter tore the axe from her hands and threw it aside.
Jonah fired. The bullet struck Peter’s upper arm and spun him around. The other five hunters charged. Jonah fired again. One took a round through the face but kept coming.
Lillian rolled as Peter stamped at her skull. His boot cracked the stone beside her ear. She drew her knife and slashed across his damaged knee. The leg gave way. Peter dropped. Lillian drove the knife through the side of his neck. Black blood spilled over her hand. Peter gripped her wrist.
“Thomas said you would fight.”
Everything inside her went still. “What did you say?”
Peter pulled her closer. “Thomas remembers.”
Jonah struck him across the skull with the rifle. Peter released her.
“Move!” Jonah shouted.
They ran toward the gatehouse. Behind them, Peter laughed. Lillian looked back. He had risen despite the ruined knee and the knife wound in his neck. The five hunters followed. The ordinary infected gave them space. That frightened her more than the horde.
“They’re leading it,” she said.
Jonah fired over his shoulder. “I noticed.”
They reached the gatehouse stairs. A dead guard lay across the bottom step, his face torn open. The infected that had killed him turned from the door. Lillian took the first through the temple with her knife.
Jonah shot the second in the chest. It barely slowed. He fired again. The bullet struck its forehead. It fell backward down the steps. They climbed. The gatehouse door was locked. Jonah slammed his shoulder into it. The wood held.
“Stand back.” Lillian kicked beside the latch. The frame cracked. She kicked again. The door burst inward. A shape lunged from the darkness. Lillian ducked. Claws scraped across her hood.
Jonah fired. The muzzle flash revealed a Grayhaven mechanic hanging from the ceiling beams by a length of chain. He had been opened from throat to abdomen. But he was not infected. He was still alive. His eyes found Lillian.
“Below,” he gasped. The chain slipped. He fell. Lillian caught part of his weight, lowering him to the floor.
“What’s below?”
The mechanic coughed blood. “They changed it.”
“Who?”
“The patrol.”
Peter’s voice came from the stairway.
“We improved it.”
Jonah turned and fired through the doorway. The shot struck the wall. Peter had already moved aside. The other returned hunters climbed behind him.
Lillian dragged the mechanic farther into the gatehouse. “Where’s the counterweight release?”
He pointed toward an iron wheel mounted beside the gear assembly. Jonah reached it. The wheel would not turn. A steel spike had been driven through the spokes and into the wall.
“Need a hammer,” he said.
Lillian searched the workbench. Tools lay scattered across it. Wrenches. Files. A short-handled sledgehammer. She grabbed it. The first black-eyed hunter entered.
A woman named Ellen March. She had been Grayhaven’s best tracker. Now a deep bite had removed most of her right cheek.
Jonah fired. Ellen twisted aside. The bullet grazed her ribs. She reached him before he could aim again. They crashed against the wall. Lillian swung the hammer. Ellen released Jonah and caught Lillian’s forearm. Peter appeared behind her.
“Careful,” he said. “He wants her alive.”
Lillian froze. Ellen’s black eyes narrowed.
“He?”
Peter stepped into the room.
“You know who.”
The horde roared below them. The gate continued to open. Lillian looked at Peter.
“Where is Thomas?”
His expression changed. For an instant, something almost human moved beneath it. Then it disappeared.
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
“For you to remember.”
Ellen tightened her grip. Lillian let the hammer fall. Peter smiled. Then Lillian drove the heel of her boot down onto Ellen’s injured foot. Bone collapsed. Ellen’s grip loosened.
Lillian caught the hammer before it struck the floor and swung upward. The head connected beneath Ellen’s jaw. Her teeth snapped together. Jonah drove his knife into the base of her skull. She fell.
Peter lunged. Lillian hurled the hammer. He dodged it. That gave Jonah enough time to raise his rifle. He fired at point-blank range. The bullet entered Peter’s shoulder and exited through his back.
Peter staggered through the doorway. Lillian seized the sledgehammer and struck the steel spike lodged in the wheel.
Once. The impact rang through the gatehouse.
Twice. The spike shifted.
Below, Grayhaven’s defenders were losing ground. The infected had forced them away from the gate and into the central yard. Barricades burned. A horse ran loose between buildings, its reins trailing through blood.
A woman screamed for her child. The scream ended beneath the horde.
Lillian hit the spike again. It bent.
Jonah leaned against the door, firing at the returned hunters as they climbed the stairs.
“How many strikes is this going to take?”
“As many as it takes.”
“Comforting.”
The mechanic grabbed Lillian’s boot. She looked down. His face had gone gray.
“Don’t let me turn.”
“You won’t.”
His hand slipped away. Lillian struck the spike. It broke free.
Jonah grabbed the wheel. Together, they pulled. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the mechanism released. The gate dropped.
The massive steel doors slammed inward with enough force to shake the wall. Infected caught between them burst beneath the impact. Others clawed at the narrowing gap. Arms, heads, and shoulders were crushed as the doors met with a thunderous crash. The horde outside slammed against the barrier.
Grayhaven’s wall shuddered. But the gate held. A cheer rose from the courtyard. It lasted less than a second. Hundreds of infected were still inside.
Peter stepped into the gatehouse doorway. Behind him stood the four surviving members of the patrol. His ruined leg dragged, and blood covered one side of his body, but his smile remained.
“You closed the door,” he said.
Lillian raised the hammer. “That was the idea.”
“You trapped yourself.” He pointed toward the courtyard.
The infected already inside Grayhaven stopped moving. Every one of them.
The sudden stillness spread through the settlement. Hunters lowered their weapons uncertainly. The infected stood among the dead and stared toward the gatehouse. Toward Lillian.
Peter lifted one blackened hand. The horde turned as one.
“Run,” he said. They charged the tower. The staircase vanished beneath bodies.
Jonah slammed the gatehouse door and dropped the bar into place. The first impact cracked the frame. The mechanic stirred on the floor. His eyes opened. Clouded now. Lillian drove the knife into his temple before he could rise.
The door shook again. The hinges bent.
Jonah looked around the room. “No other exit.”
“There’s a roof hatch.” Lillian pointed upward.
He dragged the workbench beneath it. The infected mechanic’s hand closed around her ankle. She looked down. The knife was still buried in his temple. But he was moving.
His eyes were not clouded anymore. They were black. Lillian tore free. The mechanic sat up slowly.
“You can’t kill what remembers,” he whispered.
Jonah stared at him. Lillian ripped the knife from his skull and struck again. The mechanic collapsed. This time, he stayed down.
The gatehouse door began to split. Jonah climbed onto the workbench and pushed open the roof hatch. Cold rain swept into the room.
“Go.”
Lillian climbed after him. They emerged onto the narrow roof beside the western wall. Below them, the courtyard swarmed with infected.
The defenders had retreated behind a second barricade near the cell blocks. Holt shouted orders from the top of a wagon. Mae dragged a wounded guard toward the infirmary while Silas fired from a balcony.
Clara stood on the roof of the dining hall with a bow. She released an arrow. It entered an infected man’s eye. The girl had stopped freezing.
The gatehouse door broke open below.
Lillian and Jonah crossed onto the wall. Peter emerged through the roof hatch behind them. The other hunters followed.
Jonah fired. Peter ducked.
The bullet struck one of the returned patrol in the throat. The infected fell from the roof and disappeared into the horde.
“Keep moving,” Lillian said.
The wall platform stretched toward the nearest watchtower. Below it, the outside horde battered the gate. Inside, the dead climbed the stairs after them. The wall had become a bridge between two armies. Lillian ran.
Peter followed. He was faster on his ruined leg than any living man should have been.
Jonah reached the watchtower first and pulled open the door. A guard inside turned toward them. A bite covered his face.
Jonah fired. The guard fell across the threshold. They stepped over him and slammed the door.
The tower contained a ladder leading to the upper platform and a rack of emergency weapons. Most had already been taken.
One crossbow remained. Three bolts. Lillian grabbed it.
Jonah checked the narrow windows. “They’re climbing the wall from both sides.”
“Can the searchlight move?”
“What?”
“The searchlight.”
Jonah looked up. The tower’s rotating lamp was mounted above them.
“Why?”
“Fire drew them at the farmhouse.”
“That was thirty infected.”
“It worked.”
“This is hundreds.”
“Then we need a bigger fire.”
Understanding crossed his face. “The fuel tank.”
The searchlight used an old diesel generator mounted beneath the platform. Jonah climbed the ladder. Lillian followed. They reached the top in time to see Peter pull himself onto the tower balcony. She fired the crossbow. The bolt struck his chest.
Peter looked down at it. Then back at her. “Rude.”
Jonah swung the rifle. Peter caught it and tore it from his hands. Lillian loaded a second bolt.
One of the returned hunters climbed over the railing behind Peter. Then another. The platform was too small. No room to retreat. Jonah drew his knife.
Lillian aimed at Peter’s eye. He moved. The bolt struck the hunter behind him in the forehead. The body fell from the tower.
Peter rushed her. Lillian dropped the crossbow and met him with the sledgehammer. He caught the handle. They struggled near the railing. Below them, the settlement burned. The dead filled every street.
Peter leaned close. “Thomas can hear your heart.”
Lillian shoved harder. “Thomas is dead.”
Peter’s smile faltered. “No.”
“He died twenty years ago.”
“You left him.”
The words entered the oldest wound inside her. Her strength slipped. Peter ripped the hammer away and struck her across the ribs with the handle.
Lillian fell against the railing. Pain stole her breath. Jonah tackled Peter. They hit the platform floor. The remaining infected hunter lunged at Lillian.
She seized the crossbow and drove its metal edge into his throat. He clawed at her. She kicked him backward. The railing broke. He fell into the courtyard. Peter threw Jonah aside and rose.
Lillian reached for the last bolt. Peter stepped on her hand. Bones ground against the roof.
“You want to see him,” he said.
She stared up at him. “What is he?”
Peter crouched. “More.”
A rifle cracked from the dining hall. The bullet struck Peter’s temple. His head snapped sideways.
Clara stood on the distant roof beside Silas, lowering the rifle.
Peter remained crouched. A black hole marked the side of his skull. He touched it. Then laughed. Lillian’s blood went cold.
Peter stood. The wound began to close. Not heal. Close. Black tissue crawled through the opening like worms beneath skin.
Jonah saw it. “What the hell?”
Peter grabbed Lillian by the coat and pulled her upright. A deep horn sounded beyond the wall. The outside horde stopped battering the gate. Every infected in Grayhaven stopped too. Silence fell across the settlement. Peter turned toward the forest.
A figure stood on the highway beyond the wall. Tall. Motionless. The searchlight passed over him. A torn black coat. Dark hair. One side of his face ruined by the infection. The other side almost unchanged.
Lillian forgot the pain in her hand. Forgot the horde. Forgot the twenty years between one heartbeat and the next.
Thomas Blackwood looked up at her. Even at that distance, she knew his eyes. He raised one hand. Peter released her immediately. Every infected in Grayhaven dropped to its knees.
Thomas’s voice carried over the wall. “Bring her to me.”
Peter smiled. Then he seized Jonah and threw him from the tower.