Twenty minutes from the fortress, I spotted the first Infected.

She faced away from me, as motionless as the trees around us. Clumps of graying hair clung to her scalp, and her tattered clothing drooped over sagging flesh. One ear dangled from a string of flesh. The other ear was absent entirely.

I stumbled back a step, mouthing a curse as the underbrush crackled, but the Infected displayed no reaction. Although the virus’s effects remained largely unknown, the Infected seemed to rely on human senses. As long as she did not see me, perhaps I was safe.

Eyes on the Infected, I backed toward a tall pine. I grabbed the lowest tree branch, planted a foot on a knob on the trunk, and swung up into the tree. Scrambling up higher, I ducked behind the largest branch I could find.

Feet shifted, a slow rustle of snow. Then footsteps approached.

I hunched my shoulders and drew my arms in front of myself, nails digging into the bark. My forehead pressed into the branch, and my muscles trembled with the effort to hold still. A glint of silver hair and angry red scalp passed directly under my tree branch. 

She continued walking.

I waited until the footsteps faded into the woods, and then I slipped off the canvas knapsack strapped to my shoulders and untied the strings. Rummaging past a metal water canister and a threadbare blanket, I pulled out the map. A dotted line led from the starred fortress through the trees toward a highway surrounded by farmland. A rectangle with a dash depicted the landmark nearest the base — a Noble Forces billboard. 

I slipped the map back into the knapsack, slid out of the tree, and set out toward the highway. For the next hour, only an occasional snuffling critter or twittering bird cut through the steady tromp of my boots through snow. The trees grew sparser until valleys of sparkling snow blanketed the ground. 

When I passed the last few trees, the sun spilled fuzzy beams over an endless white field. Patches of melted snow revealed black asphalt from the former highway.

No trees for refuge. Nowhere to hide.

Rekkan had assured me I would lose courage at the edge of the woods and run back to him. He said it enough times it began to sound less like a taunt and more like a prayer. 

Sucking in a breath, I continued onward.

I trekked along the remains of the road, redirecting my route each time more asphalt breached the snow. Only the occasional dilapidated farmhouses and silos marked my progress. Meanwhile, the horizon shaved off the bottom of the sun, and pink, orange, and yellow seeped over the sky like spilled paint, a stunning contrast to the monochrome landscape. 

Before long, darkness would swallow the land.

Cold sweat pricked my skin, and I picked up the pace, legs snapping forward in a numb half-jog. Finally, I saw the billboard. A faded woman in a navy blue uniform proudly saluted the camera. Though half of the letters had vanished with age and wear, I recognized the message. 

The Northern Noble Forces: Fighting for a better future.

Assuming the map was drawn to scale, I would reach the base within an hour. Anticipation flooded me. Soon, I could prove my worth, clear my mother’s name, and maybe even save the world.

But then I heard the toddler.

The wail carried from behind a farmhouse with a caved roof and half-stripped paint. For a minute, I froze in place, crushing my lip between my teeth as I studied the map. I was so close to the Research Base, where I could possibly help so many survivors and not just one lone toddler. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to leave. 

My boots punched through snow and skidded across icy patches as I approached the farmhouse. I started toward the back, but then a flash of motion caught my eye. Holding my breath, I ducked behind the wall and wrenched out my switchblade.

A man stumbled into view, glassy-eyed and mumbling. He gestured with both arms as he spoke, addressing some invisible person ahead of him. One arm ended at a bleeding stump around his elbow. 

“I told you not to do it, but did you listen?” He barked a jagged laugh. “I knew it was a trick. I knew they wouldn’t help us.”

He staggered forward once more. For a breathless minute, I watched him go. When his murmurings faded from earshot and he shrank to a dot of black against the snow, I rounded the corner.

A pram with ratty pink curtains stood alone, wheels frozen to the ground. Fuzzy splotches of color scattered the snow-covered field beyond. Squinting against the sunlight, I brought the splotches into focus.

Bodies. Thirty, forty, fifty… perhaps an entire town. All except the child in the pink pram.

The wailing cut off, the blankets rustled, and the toddler sat up and turned toward me. Breath trapped in my lungs, I gaped at the sight. Pink onesie stitched with red hearts, braided blonde pigtails, open-mouthed giggle…

And cavernous black eye sockets.

I swept another glance over the field and noticed tiny bite marks littering the bodies. Toddler-sized bite marks.

Dread suctioned over my gut. What the fuck was this thing? Freshly-Baked or Overcooked? Regardless of the stage of the virus, anyone could outrun a toddler. So why hadn’t they?

Slowly, quietly, I slid the pack off of my shoulder. Then I chucked it past the pram. The canvas skittered through snow, and the toddler wrenched around toward the sound, white skull glinting between her pigtails at the back of her head. In one fluid motion, she gripped the far side of the pram with both hands and vaulted over. With another giggle, she crawled toward the sack. 

Several feet from the sack, she stopped and gurgled a questioning coo. After a minute passed in silence, she plopped onto her bottom and resumed crying.

I edged backward, toe to heel, but I only made it a few steps before snow crackled on my left. I turned to see the returning Freshly-Baked man. He cocked his head and blinked, eyes focusing on me. His bleeding arm flipped up in almost a wave.

Then he hurtled toward me.

Dodging a wild swipe of his arm, I jabbed the switchblade into his throat. When I yanked the blade free, blood spurted over the snow and spattered my coat. 

Snow swished, and I whipped back toward the toddler. She now scuttled straight toward me on hands and feet, back arched and limbs flowing with inhuman grace. Her vacant eye sockets fixed on me, and her lips twisted in a grin. 

As I struggled to process the sight, my mother’s words rang clear in my mind. 

Even Ether will fall in the third phase. 

Panic flared through me like a power surge. “Oh, shit! Oh, fuck!”

I scrambled back and readjusted my grip on the switchblade. This was like a centipede or rodent in the kitchen. Surely I could defeat it with the same strategy.

Panicked flailing.

I swiped right and left at the monstrous once-a-toddler. The blade sliced neatly through the flesh of one arm, but her advance never paused. Baby socks and pudgy hands grappled over my kneecaps, my hips, and then my shoulders. Her open mouth swung toward my throat.

I screamed and flung both arms over my neck. The baby incisors tore into my hand before she flipped onto the ground beside me. When she scrambled toward me once more, I slammed the knife into the top of her head. 

The blade glanced off skullbone. 

Her smile dropped, face twisting in rage, and she planted both fists in the snow and launched herself toward me again. I plunged the blade through one empty eye socket.

I registered the wet heat before the bang. Sopping clumps of burning flesh slapped my pants. One glob smacked my cheek and smeared down to slip from my jaw. Copper and rot infused the air. 

I wiped my arm over my face, gagging, but then movement caught my eye.

The Freshly-Baked man clawed at the snow with his one hand and paddled his stump arm, dragging himself closer. Blood still gushed from his wobbling neck, and he spoke in a gurgling rasp.

“I told you not to do it.” He raised a trembling finger, pointing at some invisible person just over my shoulder. “I told you not to fire the flare gun.”

Then his head exploded.

I jerked away from the repulsive spray and tumbled back into the snow. Shaking and gasping for breath, I stared at the darkening sky above. 

For a moment, I imagined I was viewing the sunset from Rekkan’s fortress. We would eat dinner soon. I would tell him about the corrections I had made on the new books he brought home, and he would just smile. So safe, warm… happy. 

Then a stinging pain brought my attention to my hand, indented by baby teeth and trickling blood. 

A cloud passed over the remaining sunlight, sucking the warmth from the air. Was it an actual cloud or the Infection’s spread? Was the buzzing in my ears a reaction to the recent explosions or to my diminishing faculties? When the Infection took over, would my consciousness remain as an onlooker?

If you think you can save the world, then you’re as crazy as your mother. And you’ll end up the same way.

Voices slogged through my stream of horror as though underwater.

“...could be Infected, though.”

“Na, pretty sure that one is still human.”

I unfolded the sleeve of my coat to hide the bite and pushed up to sitting. Three people approached, all wearing red wristbands. Two brawny henchmen flanked the red-haired man I had seen just this morning.

“Hey, it’s the Southie that Recluse keeps.” The redhead grinned at me, mustache twitching and blue eyes glinting. “We can use this to our advantage, my friends. Recluse won the battle this morning, but we will win the war.”

The henchmen snorted in laughter. They wore bunny-ear stocking caps, one yellow and one blue. 

“That’s right.” The yellow-capped henchman nodded hard enough the bunny ears flapped. “We’ll kill him!”

“Yeah,” said the henchman with the blue cap, who was actually a henchwoman. “And then leave his body at the gate for Recluse to find!”

They grinned at each other, but their smiles dropped when the redhead shot them a glare. 

“No, we’ll do better than that. We’ll send Recluse a lock of the Southie’s hair and a message: hand over the fortress by dawn if he wants to see his pet alive and whole.”

Maybe it was the flopping bunny ears of the henchmen, or maybe the Infection had already short-circuited my brain. Whatever the reason, I found myself laughing. Hysterical bursts cramped my gut until I doubled over, wheezing. When I managed to pull myself under control, all three of them stared at me with wide eyes.

I shook my head and swallowed back another burst of laughter. “He would never abandon his fortress for me.”

The redhead shrugged. “Then you better decide which finger you want to lose first.”