There was a small police station on this subway platform. After spending a few minutes exploring it, they determined that it was free of zombies, and that it would make a good place to hunker down for the remainder of the night.

  Stu had no intention of sleeping, however. He had questions.

  "How did the outbreak begin?" he asked Lucky.

  The kid shrugged. "No one really knows. It started in Astria, I'm pretty sure of that, but it didn't take long for it to spread all over the world. Rurik, Serra Hidalgo, the Northwestern Authority...it only took a few weeks. That's what Luna told me, anyway."

  "Luna is your sister?"

  "Yeah. She's quite a bit older than me. Old enough to remember what it was like before."

  "It happened about ten years ago, right?"

  "Yeah."

  That lined up with what Virge had told him. He frowned, thinking that over for a minute, then asked, "You said the infection spreads through saliva. Does that mean it's a virus?"

  "Probably, but I don't know for sure. I don't think anyone does."

  "Ah."

  "It does weird things to people, I can tell you that. You can cut a zombie in half and he'll keep coming after you -- that's because his internal organs are constantly repairing themselves."

  "What?"

  "It's true. That's why it doesn't bother a zombie much if you shoot him in the body. You can rip out his lungs, put a bullet in his heart, stab him in kidneys, but it won't do anything, because they can heal those organs as fast as you can damage them. They can even regrow them."

  "You're saying they have some kind of healing factor?"

  "I guess you could call it that. It's only their internal organs, though. They can't fix their arms and legs, or their muscle tissue, or their skin, and of course they'll die if you cut their heads off or scramble their brains. But that's pretty much the only way to kill them, apart from fire."

  "Fire can kill them, too?"

  "Most of the time."

  "I see." This was useful information. "But if they can't repair their skin, and if their bones and muscles rot away, won't they eventually just fall apart?"

  "Sure, but it takes a long time. Years, usually."

  "What about the zombie we just fought?"

  "What about it?"

  "Well, it was different from the others."

  "It was a jumbo."

  "So what's a jumbo?"

  "It's an irregular. There's lots of different kinds of irregulars. About one out of every ten people who gets infected turns into an irregular. Jumbos are big and fat; they never stop growing. Speedies are fast, ragers are strong. Bombers get these huge guts, and they explode when you get near 'em. They're really gross. Glowies like to drink dynamo fluid, which makes them glow green, and they can start fires just by touching things. Brainies keep their human intelligence, but they're just as crazy about wanting to kill people as any other zombie. They're very dangerous."

  This was all rather horrifying, but Lucky wasn't done yet. "Worst of all are the mutates, though. Their whole bodies change -- they grow claws and scales and tails, and some of them start running around on all fours, like animals. Some of them are stronger than ragers and faster than speedies, and some of them can spit poison and breathe underwater and shoot needles at you and give you electric shocks. They're monsters."

  The thing that had killed Virge had certainly fit that description -- it had behaved more like an animal than a man, and it had had a keen biological camouflage. The zombies were bad enough, but the fact that these monstrous things were running around, too...

  "What about their blood?"

  "Their blood?"

  "In the zombies I've killed, there was some kind of silvery substance mixed in with their blood."

  "Oh, that. They all have that. It's something to do with the infection."

  "You don't know what it is?"

  "No idea." The kid frowned at him. "You really didn't know any of this stuff? Where have you been for the last ten years?"

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  "Do you want the truth?"

  "Yeah."

  "You probably won't believe me."

  "Try me."

  Was it really a good idea to reveal this? He didn't want the kid to think he was crazy. But on the other hand...well, he probably already thought he was crazy, and Stu couldn't see the harm in telling him. Besides, the kid had saved his life a couple of times, during their fight with the Brute; Stu felt like he owed him something.

  "All right, then," he said. "I'm from another world."

  Lucky stifled a laugh. "You're kidding."

  "I was working at my part-time job when two guys grabbed me, threw me into car, and marched me through this portal. And the portal led us here, into these tunnels. The first guy was killed by a zombie and the second guy was killed by a mutate. They kept talking about Lon Halos, and someone called Dr. Snowe, and something called the Dread. Do you have any idea what any of that means?"

  "No," he said. "Except, Lon Halos is a city, like I told you before." He absently tapped at his gun, which was sitting in his lap, and gave Stu a searching look, as though he were trying to decide whether he was telling the truth. "Is this a joke?"

  "You wanted the truth."

  "So what was this other world of yours like?"

  "I don't know. Kind of like this one, I guess, except that there were no zombies."

  "No zombies? No outbreak?"

  "Nope. And no Meku City, either, or Lon Halos, or Astria. I lived in a country called the United States of America."

  "Never heard of it." He shifted uncomfortably. "I'm pretty sure you're making all this up," he said, "but you don't sound like you're making it up. You sound like you really believe it. It's weird."

  Stu shrugged. "I told you you wouldn't believe me."

  "These two guys that kidnapped you...what were their names?"

  "Virge and Wayman."

  "Were they Pale Riders?"

  "I don't think so. They were dressed in business suits. I thought they were FBI agents, at first."

  "What's an Effbee-eye?"

  "It's not important."

  "Did they tell you why they were kidnapping you?"

  "No," he said. "They kept telling me this guy Dr. Snowe needed me for something, but they wouldn't explain it." He sighed. "All I want to do is go back to my own world. I thought the portal they opened might still be open, so after Virge was killed I went back into these tunnels to look for it, but I took a wrong turn somewhere. That's when I found you."

  "Are you going to go back and look for it now?"

  He thought about it. "I don't think so. It's too dangerous down here, and the portal's probably closed anyway. It was always a long shot. The only chance I have now is to get to Lon Halos and find this Dr. Snowe. Virge said he could send me home."

  "Lon Halos is a long, long ways from here."

  "So you've told me."

  "Well, I don't believe any of this, but it sure is interesting." He looked up at Stu. "So where do you go from here?"

  "I told you, I've gotta get to Lon Halos."

  "But how?"

  "I...don't know. I guess I can't fly out there, can I? And the trains and buses probably aren't running either. How long would it take me to get there on foot?"

  Lucky looked at him like he was crazy. "You'd never make it."

  And unfortunately, the kid was probably right. Stu knew next to nothing about this world. It was a post-apocalyptic wasteland, full of zombies and gangs and strange technologies -- like Lucky's railgun -- that he had never seen before. He had barely managed to survive the last few hours, and only with Lucky's help. How could he hope to travel hundreds of miles, on foot, all by himself, through this zombie-infested alternate Earth?

  Stu had played a few video games set in post-apocalyptic hellscapes like this one, and had sometimes wondered what it would be like to visit one. In the games, worlds like these were exciting and fun. Exploring ruined cities, fighting monsters, collecting loot, completing quests, getting stronger and stronger as you went along...all that was very satisfying. Even better, in a world where the zombies had taken over, no one ever had worry about mundane things like taking out the trash, doing their taxes, changing the oil in their car, or showing up for work on time. It was a life without responsibilities, and that had always appealed to Stu. He was a lazy guy.

  Real life in a zombie-infested nightmare was different, though. No video game could replicate the sheer terror of what he had felt in these tunnels. Sawing a man's head off and watching the blood gush out of his neck -- even if he was a zombie -- was traumatizing. He could smell their rotten flesh; he could feel their cold, clammy skin; he could hear their ferocious snarling. And he was tired, and hungry, and thirsty, and filthy, and covered with cuts and scrapes. It was impossible to feel those things in a video game.

  This wasn't fun. This was hell.

  "I'll probably get killed along the way," he admitted. "But I have to try."

  Lucky shrugged. "I'll take you to the Harbor, then. You might be able to find someone there who can help you. Penelope can put you in touch with the Pale Riders. They ride their bikes all over the country. One of them might be willing to let you tag along."

  "That sounds great."

  "They won't do it for free, though. And you can't really trust them. You should keep that in mind. You can't really trust anybody, out here. You were lucky you ran into a nice guy like me."

  "You threatened to shoot me when we first met. And you still haven't given me my gun back."

  "Anybody else would've just killed you." But after a moment's thought he reached into his backpack and handed the empty gun back to Stu. "I guess you've earned it. You did help me out back there."

  "Thanks." He put the gun in his duffel bag. Unless and until he managed to find some .45 ACP ammo, the weapon was useless, but he felt better having it in his possession.

  "I'm tired," the kid said abruptly. "I'm going to get some sleep. You keeping watch?"

  "I'll try."

  "Good." Using his backpack as a pillow, he rolled over on his side, closed his eyes, and almost instantly fell asleep. Stu was amazed that he could fall asleep so quickly; he must have had a knack for it. Stu himself, despite being exhausted, was far too tense to even think about sleeping. The police station may have been zombie-free, but there were still zombies out there, in the tunnels. How could he sleep, knowing they were nearby?

  And his mind was still swirling with the inconceivably horrifying events of the day. He thought about Virge, shooting Wayman in the back of the head; he thought about the zombies he had decapitated; he thought about the Brute's smashed-up brains. He wondered about the ICON system, and what it all meant; he wondered if his friends and family had realized that he was missing yet.

  And even though it was ridiculous, he found himself thinking about Berly, his ex-girlfriend, who in this world was apparently some kind of famous movie actress...or at least she had been, ten years ago, before the outbreak. He took the newspaper ad out of his pocket again and looked at it.

  "Berly," he whispered. Was this version of Berly still alive? And if Berly had a doppelganger in this world, did that mean that he had one too?

  There were so many things he didn't know. Exhaling slowly, he put the newspaper away, leaned back, and waited for morning to come.