The tree looked serene, its branches like they had withstood the test of time—like firm fingers trying to catch the sun. Dewey looked at them. He was forced to do so.

  He struggled once more, feeling the rope on his wrists not giving in. Another big breath. The rope around his neck burned into his flesh. He tried again to get his feet to a branch close by, preferably without letting the rope slide and choke him.

  The idiots had hanged him. Poorly.

  He looked at the others in the group he was traveling with, all hanging from different branches. He looked for movement. For a second, Jack—the big fellow that served as a mule, pulling the carts, loading and unloading heavy items—slightly kicked his feet.

  Dewey tried to call his name. “Jck!”

  The rope around his neck did not make the sound loud, nor the words clear, but every sound cut the silence here in the tree.

  “Hmppfff,” he heard. “Fe fck.”

  Dewey felt his shoulders relax a bit. “Jck, ok?”

  “Fck you,” Jack muttered, with the equal disabilities of a rope around his neck.

  “Swng!” Dewey tried. “Jck, swng!”

  He glanced at the branch where Jack’s rope was; it already was bending. When Jack moved, it creaked. With all his force, Dewey tried to swing. “Like this, you moron!”

  All that came out was, “gruh grug mogn.”

  Jack grunted something unintelligible back and kicked his legs. When he felt he reached the low point, he kicked again. He started to swing. From the neck, hanging on a tree with roughly seven corpses—and Dewey. Dewey also swung. His branch was thick and was not bending under his weight. Still, if he could reach the other branch, he could pull.

  ***

  With a crack, Dewey’s branch broke. Dewey let out a “Heh” when he heard the sound from above him. He looked down. It was quite a fall; probably he would break his legs or his neck, and the whole thing was just a more painful way to die. He slowly felt the rope sliding off the branch.

  Another crack.

  Dewey watched the whole of Jack crashing down to the ground. In a second, Jack got up, removed the rope, and took some freeing gasps of air. Dewey tried to look into his eyes. He felt weightlessness as another crack—his own branch—gave up entirely. Dewey closed his eyes, waiting for the impact.

  Two strong arms caught him.

  ***

  The two men sat, backs resting on the tree. Jack looked up. “We should cut them down.” The big man’s eyes were as red as his neck.

  “We should get the hell out of here,” Dewey said, pressing his sore voice to a whisper. “If they come back, we’re done for.”

  Jack smacked him with the back of his hand. “Look!” he yelled, grabbing Dewey’s neck, forcing him in the direction of a hanged woman. “You recognize her?”

  Dewey saw her, tried to look down as the corpse slowly turned—her eyes, the dead hollow eyes of his wife, looked at him. Dead. Unblinking. “We will cut them down, bury them, then kill the assholes who did it,” Jack said, still holding Dewey’s head.

  He stood up, his stare on the ground, scanning it for something. He picked up a sharp rock. “You start digging a hole.”

  Dewey stood up and removed the rope from his neck, his eyes fixed on his wife again. She would have told them to run. She would have kicked Jack in the nuts if he did not listen. Dewey felt a bubble in his stomach—one more look at his Sel. A single tear; it tasted of salt.

  Dewey looked at Jack. Kicking him in the nuts now would be a death warrant.

  ***

  “Jack,” he said after finding a stone and starting to dig. The soil was loose. He picked out a spot where a large tree once stood; the hole where the roots had dug in was almost big enough for the seven bodies. “Jack, we will bury the bodies, then go back to the safe house.” Dewey tried to use a soft, commanding voice—the one his wife always used when persuading Jack. “Get some help.”

  “Are you a coward?” Jack hauled another body to the pit, carefully laid it in its final position, held his hand over his heart, and said some short words. Then he turned toward Dewey. A finger attached to a large hand pointed at him. “If we wait we will never find them again. You know this.”

  The finger turned into a grabbing hand that took a handful of Dewey’s shirt. Jack lifted him up with one hand, barely straining himself. “Those were good people,” he yelled. Spit flew out of his mouth onto Dewey’s forehead. “What’s wrong with you?”

  He threw Dewey into the pit next to the dead woman. “That’s Sel, your wife.”

  Dewey felt shivers run through his whole body as he looked at her. Her eyes were closed now. Where the rope had been was a red stain, some blood still wet, glimmering in the light. He wanted to touch her, to say goodbye. A big knot in his throat held him back.

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  “Us dying will not help, Jack. One near-death experience was enough for today.” Dewey stood up, tried not to step on one of the bodies, then crawled out of the hole. He slapped Jack on the shoulder. “Do not tell me what to feel.” His voice was ripe with anger. “She”—he pointed at Sel—“would not want us to die. Be smart.”

  Jack’s eyes went wide. Dewey saw Jack’s muscles flex. Wisely, he took a step back.

  “You coward!” Jack screamed, his fist flying straight for Dewey. Dewey ducked.

  “You idiot!” Dewey yelled back and kicked Jack’s shin.

  Dewey tried to evade Jack’s fists, looking for an escape route. Jack’s hand caught him in the stomach; blood filled his mouth. Another salt taste. Dewey saw his life flash by, ending with a vision of him lying next to Sel in the pit. He fell on the ground, spitting blood.

  He tried to get up but couldn’t. Jack raised his leg, ready to deliver the last blow.

  Dewey looked at Sel, his head started to throb. The knot in his stomach widened until it was hard to breathe. Run, hide, fight. Dewey knew his options were none. “A delay, before death,” he said between gasps of air.

  “Dammit, Jack, tell me what you want to do,” Dewey said. “I’ll help.”

  Jack’s leg was up, ready to kick. He held it in. “If you run, I will kill you.”

  Dewey nodded. “I know.”

  ***

  “So what’s the plan?” Dewey knew his own plan—run away. But that plan led to getting killed by Jack. “You have a plan?”

  Jack’s eyes stared like a hunter at his prey, squeezed into slits, focused on a point in the distance where a campfire was burning. “We kill them,” Jack said.

  “That’s not a plan; that’s a sentence,” Dewey said, monotone. “Perhaps not even that.”

  Jack’s hand rested on Dewey’s shoulder—not squeezing, just resting. A first muscle ache was already bolting through it under the sheer weight of that one hand. “You lure them. Make a sound. Make them follow you. Then I will crush them.” Jack laughed as he whispered the plan into Dewey’s ear.

  Dewey nodded. “That is a plan.”

  ***

  From his spot in a large, dead bush, Dewey looked over the camp. Five people, not more—laughing, eating, drinking. Drinking their water, eating their food. Dewey felt anger rise up in him. He forced himself to look past it. The smell of the food tickled his nose, made him swallow a few times.

  “Every one of them deserves it,” he whispered, nothing more than wind under his breath.

  Jack was sitting a five-minute run behind him. Three guns—he counted. One bullet was all it would take. He looked back, trying to figure out how to run while keeping the dead trees as cover. It could be done.

  Dewey covered his eyes with his hands. What if all five came? Jack was huge and strong, but five men with three guns—it was way too much, even for the titan.

  A sudden sound silenced his thoughts. A twig was stepped on, close by. Dewey didn’t look; he just turned his whole body and started to run. Run to Jack.

  A sharp pain at the back of his head made the world turn black.

  ***

  A kick on his leg. Pain bolted through his head. It dragged the world scrambling back into existence. Dewey looked around. At first, everything was fuzzy; with every heartbeat, the image sharpened a little.

  “Didn’t we hang you earlier today?” one of the men squatted before him, a frown on his face. “I am quite sure we hanged him.”

  “Well, it hasn’t been three days yet, so we can rule Jesus out,” another voice said, wavering with booze. Laughter erupted.

  “Let’s bury him alive this time,” another one said. “That way we don’t rely on Tim’s ropery.”

  One guy on the edge of the camp was turning red in the cheeks. The man yelled at him, “How many nooses were from you?” The man with the red cheeks held two fingers in the air.

  The man in front of Dewey frowned again. Then he took out his knife, letting it reflect the flames of the campfire in Dewey’s eyes. “Perhaps we can persuade him to tell us.”

  “No need,” a hoarse voice came from Dewey. “I will tell—if you let me go after.”

  The knife thrust into his foot. Pain shot through his whole body.

  “Wrong time for demands,” the man smiled. “So, at least one other?”

  Dewey looked at his foot, at the bloodstain that slowly grew. A deep breath. “Well, I was going to show you where, but now I cannot walk.” He steadied his voice, letting only a small waver through.

  It worked.

  “Don’t pee your pants, boy,” the man said. “We need to sleep here.” The man showed a smirk. “So, we are going to give you a gun. You go and kill it. Then get back and we will keep you for a while.”

  “Ted,” the drunk man asked, “is this wise?”

  “Don’t worry.” The man took his knife again and cleaned the blood with Dewey’s shirt. “Cowards never run.”

  ***

  Dewey limped through the woods. He recognized the trees, the path. The tree where Jack should be hiding came into sight.

  “Jack?”

  “Dewey?” Jack whispered back. “Dewey, what the fuck?” He stepped out from behind the tree, looked at Dewey, and at his foot red with dried blood. “How did you screw this up?” Jack sighed as he looked at Dewey’s hand. “You sold me out, didn’t you?”

  Dewey nodded.

  “You’re going to kill me, Dewey?” Jack’s lip twitched upward, showing his teeth. His eyes looked past Dewey. “Well then, aim carefully—you only have one shot.”

  Jack looked him straight in the eyes. Dewey saw an unwavering face, not a hint of hesitation to be found in it. Dewey jumped back as Jack threw himself at him. When they landed next to each other, Dewey pressed the gun to Jack’s head.

  Bang!

  “Sorry, Jack,” Dewey whispered as he watched the forest floor grow red under the big guy.

  He sat there for a while, looking at the corpse of the man who wanted to avenge Sel. He cried. He banged his head against a tree, pulled at his hair. “Why am I such a coward?”

  It passed. Like always, it passed. He would go back to the safe house, back to the other survivors, as he had done since the start of the madness. He pulled himself up, limped two steps in that direction.

  There was nothing in the safe house anymore. Nothing he was going back to. Dewey felt a smirk creep onto his face. He checked the gun. Five bullets left—one in the chamber.

  ***

  Dewey sat next to the man who had put the knife in his foot. The man was shivering, bleeding from a hole in his stomach, his feet and hands tied together. The other four were already hanging high in a tree. Not a movement to be detected.

  Dewey attached the noose around the man’s neck.

  “Just survival,” the man said, his voice cracking. “It’s all just survival.”

  “Of course it is,” Dewey said through clenched teeth as he pulled the rope.