A hand stopped Henry from drawing the pistol from his belt. Without making a sound, the woman had dismounted her horse and unslung the pitchfork from her back. Once again, she pressed a finger to her lips as she moved with the silence of a shadow to the thicket of deer grass, crouching as she neared. Henry had never seen anyone move in such a fashion. Not a single wasted muscle twitch.

Now the woman sat upon her haunches, mere feet away from the Drifter that had taken an interest in something their way. Despite Annie stopping him before, his hand fell back on the butt of the pistol. He had to trust her. Out here, with Drifters, Murcies and Skinchangers abroad, she was the best equipped to keep them both alive, though, for the life of him, he wasn't dead certain he could trust her with his life just yet.

More fool him for deciding to follow her and record her story for the prosperity of all. It wasn't the first time his passion for reporting the news had brought him close to death and he doubted it would be the last, but he had a pistol in his hand and she had a pitchfork in hers. Henry felt his horse start to become restless beneath him and his hand moved from the pistol to the reins. His other hand pressed his derby down atop his head as he tried to calm the horse.

By the time he looked up once more, Annie had started to return to him, wiping the prongs of her pitchfork with strands of grass. Behind her, Henry could see the figure of the Drifter, face down in the dirt. The others had continued onwards, shambling along, unaware of what had taken their companion from their ranks. Annie tucked a booted foot in a stirrup and launched herself up, back into her saddle, the pitchfork once again slung across her back.

"You shoot, you better be damn sure you got enough bullets for the rest of 'em." With a click of her tongue and a tug of the reins, she turned her horse westward. "For as sure's I'm breathing, those things'll come from miles around at a gun sounding off. Got a knife?"

"I confess, I do not." Henry felt a flush erupt upon his features. Not for the lack of a knife, but because he had almost ignored Annie's wishes and drawn the pistol. "I'm not ... I am not the most proficient at martial skills. I am practiced in the art of target shooting, but I have never found need nor use for a knife."

That unblinking stare once again burrowed itself into Henry's mind. He adjusted his spectacles, even though they sat upon the bridge of his nose as well as ever, not sliding down or edging to one side or the other. He had to practically clutch at the pommel of his saddle to stop himself from taking out his kerchief to wipe those glasses clean. Annie's stares seemed to see everything within him and Henry quailed beneath them.

Without looking, Annie leaned backwards, her hand burrowing into the bedroll behind her saddle. A second or two later, her hand emerged holding the blade of a large mountaineers knife. A blade suited to sawing at the flesh of a fresh kill, of flaying the pelt from some animal. Serrated on one edge, the thin blade coming to a bevelled point. Annie made an upward thrusting movement which seemed out of place as she held the knife the wrong way around.

"Into the skull. Don't hesitate. They're pretty single-minded, so they won't be trying to avoid it. So long as you only face one at a time and you avoid their teeth, you'll be fine." She held out the knife, bouncing it before Henry. He took it, noting it was heavier than he had imagined. "If you get bit, I'll kill you right away. No point letting you suffer."

She nodded, as though that was supposed to fill him with comfort, and tapped the flanks of her horse, guiding it through the stands of deer grass and brush. It was the second weapon the woman had handed to Henry without waiting for a thank you and, before he rode to catch up with her, he tried to find somewhere to put the knife. Eventually, he decided to tuck it into his riding boot. As he straightened his back, he saw again the Drifter that Annie had dispatched.

She hadn't made a sound. Not a single one. From the moment she had stopped talking to the moment she had returned. Not one, solitary sound had come from her. Even critters in the undergrowth made sounds. He could hear them now, skittering about, snuffling. Not Annie. She had penetrated the skull of that Drifter with her pitchfork and Henry hadn't heard it. He began to wonder whether she truly was Annabelle Potter, risen from the dead in the form of a spirit of vengeance.

Of course, his analytical mind dismissed that out of hand thought. Henry always felt in a constant conflict between the logical and the creative. Wanting to record everything to its most accurate, but also to give events a dramatic flair that could add context to the cold, hard facts that he wrote down in his notepads. One day, he hoped to write a novel. Not this day, of course, but one day. Annie, he hoped, would give him inspiration for that. A lone frontierswoman, out for revenge. That, he did not doubt, would sell.

She remained silent as she led the way along the trail. The Sheriff had told him that she would get him killed if he went along with her and Henry had chosen to accompany her anyway. This was not the remit given to him by his editor, back East. Collect information about the outbreak. That was what he had been charged with. Learn about ways to fight those that had risen. Find out whether anyone had found a cure and report it for the benefit of all.

Like Manhattan island, many towns and cities across the continent had fallen, but mankind was a resilient species. Someone, somewhere, would find a way to bring an end to the nightmare. Henry was only one of dozens of reporters that now ranged through the lands searching for that someone. As far as he knew, no-one had found that person, yet. The United States government had hung on by a thread. The army had become nothing more than a unit for containing the spread, but it had failed to hold back the hordes everywhere and had dwindling resources to affect a better strategy.

Each remaining town and city had become nations unto themselves, clinging to ideals and laws that seemed to no longer have place or purpose in this new world. The Americas had become a land of the dead, with no hope in sight. Up ahead, Annie had drawn her horse to a halt once again and Henry's hand once again fell to the pistol at his belt. With a second thought, he moved that hand down to his boot and the knife.

"More Drifters?" He looked around, listening out for the tell-tale hissing and growling, but could only hear the buzzing of cicadas and the screech of a bird of prey, high above. "I fear I will not prove a useful ally if there are."

Indeed, he could feel his fingers making involuntary taps against his leg, twitching as his breath caught in his throat once again. This time, he couldn't see anything but, as he had seen at other times, Drifters had an uncanny ability to suddenly appear from nowhere. As though they too could become as silent as Annie once they caught scent of warm flesh. Of course, in those other times, he had accompanied groups of men, not one lone woman.

"No. Something different." She turned in her saddle, looking to one side and then the other, her brow furrowing before her eyes settled on something that caught her attention. "We should rest up a while afore the Sun gets too hot. Them there rocks'll be fine."

Upon reaching the rocks, Annie dropped to the ground, taking the pitchfork from her back, and disappeared behind the stand of weathered stones. Seconds later, she emerged from the other side and then began to check the shadows, the nooks and crannies of the rocks. Satisfied, she rolled a hand for Henry to join her. She took canteen from her saddlebags and took a drink, continuing to watch their surroundings.

"Say you find these men, the ones that killed the Potter family, what do you intend with them?" Henry followed Annie's lead, taking a drink from his own canteen. The Sun had, indeed, started to beat down heavy from the near cloudless skies. "Arrest them? Take the law into your own hands? What happens for you once you fulfil your quest?"

Annie hitched her horse to a stand of bushes and then moved to crouch in the shadow of the rocks. At first it didn't appear that she were about to answer any of the questions Henry had put to her. She clutched the canteen between the fingers of both hands, elbows resting upon her knees, her head bowed as she stared at the ground. After a few seconds, she sighed, lifting her black hat and wiping her forehead upon her sleeve. Returning the hat to her head, she squinted at Henry, one eye closed.

"Bounty says 'Dead or Alive' and I don't rightly care either way." She took another drink, swilling the water around her mouth before spitting it to the side, wiping her mouth with the back of a hand. "But, the way I see it, death ain't no punishment at all. Not anymore, leastways. They just come back. I'd care to take them in alive and watch them suffer. A long, slow, painful death wouldn't be payment for what they done, but it'd be a start."

"I would have thought you would have sought their deaths?" Henry hesitated to squat down beside this cold woman, but the rising heat prickled at the back of his neck. The shade felt like blessed relief. "As the good book says, 'an eye for an eye'."

"Killing someone don't bring back the dead. An' if'n everyone keeps taking eyes for eyes, then only the blind'll get to the gates of Heaven, don't you think?" She hammered the stopper back into the spout of her canteen and, with a heavy sigh, rose to her feet. "Now, don't go making no sudden moves. Just stand up real slow and we might not get killed."

At first, Henry didn't understand what Annie meant. The he heard the stomp of hooves, several of them, and not from the direction where their own horses were hitched. Henry began to stand, as slow as he could, as he looked out beyond the shade of the rocks. They were not alone.