CHAPTER 41

Lemmon, South Dakota.

From the driver’s seat of the RV, Michael Barnes stared out over an enormous ocean of grass. They were almost there.

“Why don’t you go back and sleep, Mr. Barnes,” said Sandra. “Send Jerald up here. He’s slept long enough.”

“I’m all right,” Barnes said.

“You’re exhausted,” Sandra said. “Look at you. You can barely keep your eyes open.”

She was right, of course. Last night, they had seemed so close, and he made the decision to keep going. They had seen a lot of the infected on the road—a lot more than he had expected to see this far from major cities—and he didn’t think it was safe to stop. But it was almost dawn now. The sky was turning a luminous gray to the east, and they still had so many more miles to go.

A nap would do you good, he thought. He’d given up his turn at the bed and let Jerald Stevens have it all night so he could be the one to drive them into the Grasslands, but that was before he’d had to deal with the monotonous prairies of South Dakota. He got the feeling a man who spent too much time looking out across those limitless waves of grass would go quietly insane. There was an immensity there that was so spectacular it left a man no choice but to turn his eye inward and look upon himself. And, Barnes knew, that way led to demons.

“You’ll wake me before we get there?” he said.

“Of course,” Richardson answered.

Barnes nodded slowly, his mind already drifting toward sleep. He got up and let Richardson climb into the driver’s seat.

He walked back to the bedroom at the rear of the RV. Clint Siefer, the kid who never seemed to say anything, was sleeping on the couch. He’d fallen asleep with the TV on, the original Star Wars playing in an endless loop on the big-screen TV across from him. Irritated, Barnes scooped up the remote and turned off the set. Then he dropped the remote on the couch at Clint’s feet and dragged himself back to the bedroom.

The light was off and he didn’t bother to turn it on. Instead, he pulled off his boots and said, “Jerald, get up.”

No answer.

“Come on, man. Get up. They want you up front.”

Again there was no answer. Barnes felt anger flare up inside him. He could see Jerald’s outline on the bed, his face turned away, one arm tossed absently over his forehead. Barnes put a hand on the bed and the other on Jerald’s shoulder, intending to push him out of bed, but he stood up suddenly when he felt something thick and squishy under his right hand.

He stared at the thing he’d just touched, and as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw it was a thick slice of deli turkey. The rest of the turkey breast, the size of a football and covered with bite marks, was cradled up against Jerald’s hip.

“Oh, man,” Barnes said. “Jerald, get the fuck up, man. That’s fucking disgusting.”

He shoved Jerald a little harder, and the man’s body felt as stiff as the legs of a table.

Barnes straightened.

He turned around, hit the lights, and went back to the bed. Jerald was pale in the face, his lips blue, his eyes open and staring blankly off at a corner of the room. A small puddle of vomit was on the bed below his mouth.

Barnes couldn’t believe it. The stupid fuck had actually eaten himself to death.

“Idiot,” Barnes said. The anger took over. “Goddamn fucking idiot,” he yelled. “Goddamn son of a bitch.”

He grabbed Jerald’s body and yanked it out of the bed.

The RV slowed and stopped, and Barnes nearly fell. He put his hand on the wall to steady himself. Then he grabbed the corpse by the shirt at the back of the neck and dragged it one-handed out to the living room.

The others were running back to him as he was coming out. He tossed the body at their feet.

Richardson stared at the body. Sandra clamped a hand over her mouth. Clint Siefer sat up on the couch and stared at them sleepily, not sure what was going on. Then he saw the dead body, and his eyes went wide with fright.

“What…” Richardson tried to say.

“The dumb fucker finally did it,” Barnes snapped. “He ate himself to death. Rigor mortis has set in. Probably been dead three or four hours.”

“Oh, my God,” Sandra said.

“Fucking idiot,” Barnes said. Then he gave the body a savage kick.