He hesitated. “Are you sure? You can still walk away.”
She looked down at the ground. His feet were bare, and there was dirt caked under his toenails as if he’d dug them into the ground. His clothes did not look like they’d been cut. They looked like they’d burst apart.
Samantha knew that she should have been terrified. She knew that she should shove this man away from her, that she should run to find her friends and then run farther until this place was far behind her.
She knew that.
And yet.
There was something about this man.
Here was a person who had suffered so much, survived so much, had so much will to live that he risked making promises despite being on the edge of death. And in the woods here were the living dead and those whose purpose was to exterminate all life.
It came down to that choice.
Between the takers of life and a man who clearly fought harder than anyone she had ever met to belong to life.
If it was a strange choice for her to make, then she blamed it on twilight.
Somehow she knew Ida would approve.
She took the big man’s arm and laid it across her shoulders.
“Come on,” she said. “I’ll help you.”
Together Samantha and Iron Mike Sweeney made their slow and careful way past evidence of carnage, away from death, toward life.
17
Sanctuary
Area 51
It took a long time to walk down the mountain.
They didn’t take the goat path. Instead they went a back way that was easier but longer. Fifty feet down that road they came to a spot where two soldiers lay. Both were dressed in the uniforms of the American Nation, the new government that had formed after the destruction of the old world. It was clear that these men had been on guard but had been surprised, overwhelmed, and murdered by the reapers. It was equally clear that Captain Ledger had quieted them. Both of them had distinctive knife wounds in the backs of their heads, right at the weak point where the spine enters the skull. What Tom had once called the “sweet spot.”
“I didn’t know there were guards up here,” said Benny.
“Of course there are guards up here,” said Ledger. “There are also a crapload of land mines and you’re lucky you didn’t step on one.”
“The reapers didn’t step on any mines.”
“Not this time,” said the ranger, “but over the years? Yeah, a whole bunch of them have gone into the darkness at high velocity.”
“It’s not funny,” said Benny.
“No,” admitted the ranger, “it’s not.”
Benny considered the two soldiers. “What were their names?”
“Private Andy Beale and Private Huck Somerton.”
“Do they have family?”
“Back home. They’re from Asheville, North Carolina.”
“I’m sorry,” Benny said.