“Good for him,” David says, and looks around the zone. “I’m still trying to get used to the quiet.” He jerks a thumb at the wall. “There’s a few stragglers out there.”
“Yeah, there’s a few creepers around—must be either atheists or Jews.”
David looks askance at her. “Huh?”
“They didn’t follow the preacher. Weren’t interested. Can’t say I blame them, either, even though, according to your mom, I’ll always be a shiksa.”
Too tired to laugh, David just grins and shakes his head and touches her cheek. “Whaddaya say we go and try to get some of that sleep people have been talking about?”
She’s about to answer when they hear an incongruous noise outside the wall on the wind.
They look at each other.
Barbara finally says, “They may be Jews, but since when do they drive?”
David turns and hurries back up the ladder, grabbing the binoculars, peering through the lenses at the darkness beyond the outskirts. He sees the headlights first, and then recognizes the car.
“I’ll be a son of a bitch!” he mutters, and hastens back down the ladder. “C’mon!” He trots over to the truck cab blocking a ten-foot-wide gap between barricades. Barbara follows.
David hands her his pistol, then climbs up into the cab, fires up the engine, and backs away from the entrance. Barbara holds the gun on the opening. She thumbs the hammer back when she hears the rumble of a big engine closing in.
David sits in the truck cab, poised to roll it back across the gap.
Miles Littleton’s purple Dodge Challenger, now as battered as a demolition derby car, booms through the opening and skids to a stop. David revs the semicab’s engine, then pulls back across the opening. He hurriedly climbs down the sideboard with a smile on his face.
“Thank God!” Barbara says, lowering the gun, putting a hand to her mouth. Her eyes moisten. When the Challenger’s dented driver’s door squeaks open, she says, “Miles, we thought for sure we lost you out there!”
A battered and bruised Miles Littleton climbs out of the muscle car. “Nope! Still kickin’.” He gives her a sideways smirk. Barbara hugs the young man, and David furiously shakes his hand, and Miles says, “And look who I found.” He indicates the backseat. “Wandering alone out there, dehydrated as fuck, totally messed up.”
David and Barbara lean in and see the figure curled up on the backseat, unmoving and silent. Barbara can barely breathe. “Is she—?”
“Sawing logs, y’all,” Miles informs them, “snoring like a motherfucking bull moose.” He pauses. “I guess she was pretty worn out.”
“Thank God she’s okay,” Barbara mutters, wiping tears from her black-rimmed, bruised eyes.
David carefully opens the rear door, reaches down to Lilly’s dusty hair, and strokes it gently. She has a furrowed brow, a strange expression on her face. David wonders if she’s having a nightmare. “Maybe we should let her sleep a while,” he says, backing away from her, gently closing the door. He looks at Barbara. “I think she’s earned it.”
“I don’t know.” Miles leans against the front quarter panel. “After she drifted off, I kept noticing her in the rearview, tossing and turning and shit. I think she might be having a major fucking dream.”
David thinks about it for a moment, and finally says, “Let’s let her sleep.” He shares another glance with Barbara, and then turns to Miles. “Everybody deserves a chance to dream.”
The three of them gather at the front end of car, leaning against the hood, idly chatting. David and Barbara give Miles some water, and check his wounds. Miles waxes poetically about the benefits of an old-school roll bar and shoulder harness in a 1972 production-line car made in America. They talk some more about the events of the past few days, and they wait patiently for their friend to navigate her nightmare.
And they will wait patiently, and they will guard that car with their lives, and they will continue to wait in the flickering darkness that night for as long as it takes for Lilly to work through the thickets and problems of her epic dream.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jay Bonansinga is the internationally acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books in fifteen languages, with several optioned by major Hollywood studios. He lives in the Chicago area with his wife, photographer Jill Norton, and his two teenage boys and is currently hard at work on the next book in the Walking Dead series. You can sign up for email updates here.
Other Books in the Walking Dead Series
Rise of the Governor
The Road to Woodbury
The Fall of the Governor: Part One
The Fall of the Governor: Part Two
Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead: Descent
Thank you for buying this
St. Martin’s Press ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on the author, click here.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
I. The Behavior of Sheep
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
II. The End of the Whole Mess
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
III. The Great Steel Oblivion
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
About the Author
Other Books in the Walking Dead Series
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
ROBERT KIRKMAN’S THE WALKING DEAD: INVASION. Copyright © 2015 by Robert Kirkman, LLC. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Lisa Marie Pompilio
Cover photograph by Blake Morrow
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-05850-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-6273-9 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466862739
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
First Edition: October 2015