Rags flicked on her solar-powered flashlight—an insanely valuable item she’d taken from the backpack of a dead hiker. Someone had shot the hiker in the head but left his gear intact. Half the good supplies Rags had in her own backpack had come from that person, and when she prayed at night, Rags always included a special thanks to Stanley Nogatowski. She’d learned his name from stuff she’d found in his wallet. Mr. Nogatowski was thirty-four, was a house painter, had a library card, had a debit card and two credit cards, belonged to Sam’s Club, and had a picture of him and another man holding hands as they cut a wedding cake.
The things she had found in his pack—PowerBars, a canteen, water purification tablets, a compass, a first aid kit, and a knife, not to mention the solar flashlight—had saved her life that day and a dozen times since. Maybe more. She sometimes prayed to Stanley as if he were her personal guardian angel. Maybe he was.
Holding Stanley’s flashlight in one hand and his Buck lock-knife in the other, Rags descended a slope of rubble from the hole in the wall to the floor of the museum.
The east wing had a lot of displays about the architecture of ancient Japan. Rain and fire had ruined almost all of it.
The rest of the building was in good shape, though Rags hadn’t yet fully explored it. She’d been to the art displays, the literature display, and one room on the second floor that was filled with all kinds of clothing. Kimonos in glass cases or hung on strings from the ceiling. They looked like giant butterflies. Rags had taken a dozen of them down and made a nest for herself in a niche behind two massive display cases filled with thousands of ivory combs and jeweled hairpins. No one would want to loot that stuff, so that was where she went. She was safe there.
She settled down and tried not to think about what had just happened outside. The room was dark and quiet and safe. There were a dozen ways out and she knew every one. She had weapons positioned around—sharp sticks, pipes, a few knives she’d taken from display cases of samurai stuff over in the west wing.
The last of the day’s light fell in dusty, slanting lines through the high windows, and the grilles split the light into patterns of lotus flowers and cherry blossoms. She watched the way the patterns moved as the sun slowly set.
Rags thought about eating some of her soup, but her stomach rebelled. No. Not after what had happened.
So she pulled the ancient silk around her and tried to sleep.
The shakes began then, and they stayed with her. The shivers followed her all the way down into her dreams, and her dreams were no escape at all.
4
The dog found her.
In the deep of night, hours and hours after the thing with the
scavengers, she woke from a troubled dream of broken teeth and grabbing hands. She woke to the certain knowledge that she was no longer alone.
Rags was too practiced a survivor to cry out even in terror. Instead she snatched up her knife and put her back to the wall, ready to run left or right, planning her route through the midnight darkness of the museum, certain she could navigate it better than any intruder.
Except she heard it coming.
It, not them. Not the living, not the dead. Not people on either side of that dividing line.
She heard it even though it moved very quietly. The dead are clumsy, and they don’t understand stealth. Scavengers do, but Rags was alert. She was paying attention and analyzing the sounds she heard for reliable meaning.
She heard the dog coming. The faint click of nails on the marble floor. Clickety-clickety-click.
Panic flared in Rags.
That big dog was coming.
For her.
It had followed her here.
That monster of a dog.
Clickety-clickety-click.
The knife in her hand felt so small. She felt small.
That dog had killed five people. Five armed adults.
Clickety-clickety-click.
So close now. Right on the other side of the case behind which she crouched.
Then . . .