Mary also approached the window, cautious, and verified that he was telling the truth with her own eyes, though listening to the devastating silence should have been enough. But she supposed seeing the deserted asphalt streets was more shocking. This unnatural stillness couldn't be a coincidence.

  "Okay," said Mary.

  For a moment, she thought she had said it out loud.

  "It’s unsettling, but they can't have done anything to the town. I believe those two... I believe those guys are capable of anything, but a disaster like this would affect their profits."

  James nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

  Mary wasn't wrong. None of that "I guess" business. Those two were trying to bury the truth. Kill him so they could go on freely lining their pockets with money and eliminating any solid opposition. They weren't going to release monsters—legions of monsters—on the town or anything like that. They were greedy, not fucking psychopaths. Precisely for that reason, what he didn't see and didn't hear unsettled him even more.

  Knowing he was right was no relief, because then he couldn't find an explanation. It couldn't be a coincidence, so... he knew it was early in the morning, but not a soul out there. Not a soul. There had to be something.

  "That’s all well and good," said Lea, snapping him out of his thoughts, "but we should take care of this thing first."

  James turned around, feeling like some sort of mannequin... or a doll rotating on its axis, whatever. This thing, yes. The zombie or whatever it was. A monster straight out of some dungeon, maybe sent by those guys. That would also be too much of a coincidence, otherwise. In any case...

  "The chipper is finally going to be of some use to us," said James.

  "I love how you always find the bright side," said Natalia.

  James, Natalia, and Lea were positioned around the corpse in the middle of the kitchen, which, by the way, they had already covered with a tarp. Why did the chipper have to be out back, not inside the house itself? Of course. And there would be a huge scene if anyone saw them carrying something that looked like a human corpse in their arms. Although he’d bet no one would see them. No one, not a soul.

  They crouched down to lift the tarp. Mary walked over. "I'll give you a hand."

  "Okay," said James. "I... will go take a look outside."

  "Agreed."

  They lifted that thing between them. Probably just one of them would have been enough, with the strength they must possess being a higher level than him, but oh well.

  "But if something happens..."

  "I won't go rushing in alone, no." James shook his head. "Don't worry."

  He approached the door. He was in no hurry to die. So he wasn't going to assume that anything in this unnatural situation was in his favor. This wasn't another dungeon crawl, something he felt accustomed to, almost. It was something that even they had never faced.

  So he would tread carefully. You couldn't be too careful. Besides, having a team now had to be good for something.

  James left the house to take a look, just as he had promised, with his armor still on and his sword at the ready. He didn't want to attract attention, but he wanted to die even less. So it wasn't a difficult decision. He could expect a surprise attack. He could expect anything, given the circumstances.

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  He looked around. He kept moving forward. He didn't want to raise his voice, to shout and see if anyone other than the girls could hear him. That would be inviting danger, consequences. Anyway, it didn't matter, even if it made no sense. He was sure Ashfall was now a ghost town. What had happened mattered less than the evident result before his eyes.

  "There has to be at least someone," he whispered, looking around constantly. "My second chance can't have ended so soon."

  But he didn't have much time to rack his brain. Sumido in his own thoughts, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He turned toward that something. A different body, sure, but also a reanimated corpse. Eyeless. And not with empty sockets, unfortunately. Whatever was oozing there was enough to turn your stomach. If this kept up, he’d puke his guts out. Gore videos hadn't prepared him for this level of gore. Nor had real life. That was obvious.

  The monster lunged at him. And it didn't move at the speed of any movie zombie. That was clear. It was nasty. It had caught him by surprise. Still, he reacted properly. Without wasting a second, he severed the right arm with a single slash. He felt victorious. He felt it was too easy to be true. And it was. Watching the hand in the air, it ended up falling onto his neck and tumbled to the ground. Only it hadn't been one. It had been two.

  Yes, he almost felt it was plausible. But in reality, it made no sense. It made no fucking sense, did it? There had to be someone out there. James was in no hurry to verify it. However, with his breath still ragged, he didn't turn back the way he came through the main entrance, but circled around the side of the house. They had used the chipper. They were already finished. Because he heard nothing. Not even a little.

  He reached the backyard and verified it was true. There they all were. Alone. The only thing remaining of the first monster's corpse was splatter on the shed where they kept the chipper. Grotesque red and black splatters, in all kinds of shapes. Very little. Nothing to indicate they were human or humanoid remains.

  James joined them.

  "What happened? Are you okay?"

  She looked him up and down.

  "I don't like this at all," he said. "And apparently empty. I don't like this at all."

  They weren't in much of a hurry either.

  "It makes no sense. If the whole town had been attacked, how were we the only ones to survive, precisely?"

  Of course, look at it how you would, this situation had neither heads nor tails. It was wrong for him to say it himself, but he was smart. He was used to seeing these kinds of things before anyone else and without much effort. However, his mind was blank. Completely. Apparently, common sense stood no chance against the supernatural. Nor had anything to do with it.

  "There has, there has to be one," said Mary, "but I have no fucking clue what it could be."

  The chipper chose that moment to give a few more shakes, accompanied by whirring sounds. And a little spurt of blood.

  Very appropriate.

  He didn't want to end up that way. He didn't want any of them to end up that way. He barely knew Mary and her group, that was true, but he liked them well enough, more or less. Besides, he wasn't sure anyone deserved to end up like that. Very few people, moreover, very few people deserved to end up like that.

  "No matter how much we rack our brains," Mary said, "we won't arrive at an answer. Better to investigate."

  "That's true," James said. "Let's get going."

  And so they did, leaving from the back of the house to investigate the town. Something told him that, whatever happened, the evidence they had just disposed of didn't matter. He hoped he was wrong.

  "What was that?" Lea said suddenly, practically jumping.

  "What was what?" Jaime asked.

  "Yeah, that. What's wrong?" Natalia asked.

  "I heard something," Lea clarified, her voice trembling.

  "We didn't hear anything," Mary said. "You didn't either, right, James?"

  He shook his head.

  "No, nothing."

  Had he really not heard anything? Was it just fear playing tricks on him? Like it could do to anyone, no matter how strong. It could be, but he didn't think so. Surely he had heard something, for real. Something the others hadn't, and it could be important.

  "What exactly did you hear?" James asked.

  "I don't know. I... just a loud noise, but I don't know."

  The girl shook her head.

  "Okay, it was a shame they couldn't clarify anything. They needed all the help they could get to unravel this incident."

  They kept moving forward. They continued to see nothing but completely deserted streets. There was no doubt that Ashfall was now a ghost town. Perhaps the population had even been transformed into those monsters.

  James shuddered.

  He didn't have time to rest on his laurels, to think and think, going around in circles. A dozen monsters appeared around the corner. They almost crashed into them.