As the girl came closer down the road, I could see that her eyes were a beautiful green, but they were deeply sunken. And she was incredibly thin. Her hipbones jutted sharply from her waist. And yet her expression was perfectly calm. She was just staring straight ahead, keeping an even pace as she made her way down the empty road. She behaved as if she was perfectly clean and healthy, as if her dress was perfectly in tact, and as if everything below her waist wasn't exposed for all the world to see.

And, also, as if nothing was attached to her foot.

I could see now that a steel animal trap was clamped around her ankle. Her foot was badly broken and twisted unnaturally. The trap's serrated jaws had dug through her skin, revealing her bone. Her toes were blackened and heavily swollen. Six feet of chain trailed behind her heel, and yet she was barely limping at all.

"Hey!" I shouted. I stepped out from the behind the brush. "Are you okay? You need help!"

The girl didn't respond. I clambered down the gully and onto the road.

"Stop!" I was close enough to her now to hear her steady breathing. "You need help. Sweetie, where are your parents? Stop!"

She didn't slow her pace. I actually had to step out of the way so she wouldn't bump into me. She just kept her gaze pointed at the far end of the road where it turned around the next bend.

I could smell her. Her foot was gangrenous. She smelled rotten.

She kept walking, and I didn't follow after her. She just kept marching casually onward, dragging the trap with her broken foot. The sound of the chain's jangling grew fainter as she moved on down the road.

What more could I do?

I was in no position to help her. I had no idea how I was going to keep even myself alive today.

The girl was obviously TGV-positive, and far advanced into stage three. She didn't even register my presence. She must have been dumped into the quarantine zone from the outside, then left to fend for herself. It was possible that she'd stumbled onto the animal trap in the woods, but I suspected that someone had set traps around their property, afraid of wandering positives. She must have been caught in it, then she must have pulled the chain free from wherever the trap had been staked into the ground. I didn't even want to think about how her dress got torn like that.

And now where was she going, this little girl? With such a blind purpose?

I watched as she disappeared around the bend.

I couldn't be sure, but my only guess was that she was moving toward what the Home Guard had called a "cluster." The pathogen must have given her an ability to sense where other positives were gathering, just like I'd seen other positives gathering in a cluster days ago, before Jason had swathed them down.

My God. She was so young.

I'd been standing exposed in the middle of the road for too long. I made my way back up the gully to my hiding place in the cottonwoods. I couldn't let anyone see me. . .

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