The next bright and cloudless midmorning found them walking along the highway out of Waycross. The land stretched to the horizon, yellow-green and dotted with copses of subtropical scrub, only rising into hills in the far distance. The radio murmured about the demons who had been shot under the hotel window the night before.

They passed a sign that read 'FORT SUMMER 240' and 'INTERSTATE 10' and -- on a newer, pasted-on white sign -- 'MILITARY CHECKPOINT - 2MI'. Hawk peered at the map.

"Y'know," he said, breaking the relative silence, "we're already halfway 'cross the island."

Teige didn't answer. Hawk waited a moment, to see if he would, and then went on, "And uh, if we leave the road at the next bend, we'll skip the checkpoint and save ourselves a day or so's walk. But that means there'll be nothing but grass between us and Fort Summer."

He waited to see if that idea bothered Teige at all--if he'd rather stick to the road, if he wanted to be guaranteed food and shelter at night--but Teige said nothing. He seemed not�mad�at Hawk, just...preoccupied.

It was a little unsettling. It was the quietest Teige had been, anyway.

"Okay," Hawk mumbled, and they left the road at the next bend, where the grass became tough and knee-high.



The radio counted four days passing, and found Hawk up a tree after nightfall, reclining on a thick bough. He had the map propped on his knee, studying it by the glow of a dirty jar filled with apparently sourceless orange light.