We huddle close together and wait for the others. I scan the crowd for Gordo, for his chest-length beard, but all I see is blur and haze, faces merging in and out behind clouds of oily smoke. Coral begins to cough.
The others don’t come. Eventually we are forced to admit that we’ve been separated from them. Raven says, halfheartedly, that they will no doubt track us down. We need to find somewhere we can safely camp, and someone who might be willing to share food and water.
We ask four different people before we find one who will help us. A girl—probably no more than twelve or thirteen, and dressed in clothes so filthy they have all turned a uniform, dingy gray—directs us to speak to Pippa, and gestures to a portion of the camp illuminated more brightly than the rest. As we make our way toward the place she indicated, I can feel the young girl watching us. I turn around once to look at her. She has a blanket pulled over her head, and her face is fluid with shadows, but her eyes are enormous, luminous. I think of Grace and feel a sharp pain in my chest.
It seems the camp is actually subdivided into little areas, each claimed by a different person or group of people. As we push toward the series of small campfires that apparently mark the beginning of Pippa’s domain, we hear dozens of fights breaking out over borders and boundaries, property and possessions.
Suddenly Raven lets out a shout of recognition. “Twiggy!” she cries, and breaks into a run. I see her barrel into a woman’s arms—the first time I have ever seen Raven voluntarily embrace anyone besides Tack—and when she pulls away, they both begin talking and laughing at once.
“Tack,” Raven is saying, “you remember Twiggy! You were with us—what?—three summers ago?”
“Four,” the woman corrects her, laughing. She is probably thirty, and her nickname must be ironic. She’s built like a man: heavy, with broad shoulders and no hips. Her hair is cropped close to her scalp. She has a man’s laugh, too, deep and full-throated. I like her immediately. “I’ve got a new name now, you know,” she says, and winks. “Around here, people call me Pippa.”
The bit of land Pippa has claimed for herself is larger and better organized than anything we have yet seen in the camp. There is real shelter: Pippa has constructed, or claimed, a large wooden shed with a roof, enclosed on three sides. Inside the hut are several crudely made benches, a half-dozen battery-operated lanterns, piles of blankets, and two refrigerators—one large, kitchen-sized, and one miniature—both chained shut and padlocked. Pippa tells us that this is where she keeps the food and medical supplies she has managed to gather. She has, additionally, recruited several people to man the campfires constantly, boil the water, and keep out anybody with an inclination to steal.
“You wouldn’t believe the shit I’ve seen around here,” she says. “Last week someone was killed over a goddamn cigarette. It’s crazy.” She shakes her head. “No wonder the zombies didn’t bother bombing us. Waste of ammunition. We’ll kill each other off just fine at this rate.” She gestures for us to sit on the ground. “Might as well park here for a bit. I’ll get some food on. There isn’t a lot. I was expecting a new delivery. We’ve been getting help from the resistance. But something must have happened.”
“Patrols,” Alex says. “There were regulators just south of here. We ran into a group of them.”
Pippa doesn’t seem surprised. She must have already known that the Wilds have been breached. “No wonder you all look like shit,” she says mildly. “Go on. Kitchen’s about to open. Take a load off.”
Julian is very quiet. I can feel the tension in his body. He keeps looking around as though he expects someone to leap out at him from the shadows. Now that we are on this side of the campfires, encircled by warmth and light, the rest of the camp looks like a shadowy blur: a writhing, roiling darkness, swelling with animal sounds.
I can only imagine what he must think of this place, what he must think of us. This is the vision of the world that he has always been warned against: a world of the disease is a world of chaos and filth, selfishness and disorder.
I feel unjustifiably angry with him. His presence, his anxiety, is a reminder that there is a difference between his people and mine.
Tack and Raven have claimed one of the benches. Dani, Lu, Hunter, and Bram squeeze onto the other one. Julian and I take a seat on the ground. Alex remains standing. Coral sits directly in front of him, and I try not to pay attention to the fact that she is leaning back, resting against his shins, and the back of her head is touching his knee.