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Ogden would have said, What the f.u.c.k are you doing? if he could have breathed, if he could have moved his mouth, but he couldn’t do either. All he could do was growl from deep in his throat.

Colonel Charlie Ogden saw Climer’s tongue. Swollen. Covered in blue sores.

Triangular blue sores.

Climer’s lips closed around his own, and Climer’s tongue dove into his mouth. Wide-eyed in shock and confusion, Ogden tried again to get away. He tried to bite down but could not—Climer’s strong hand held his lower jaw open.

Ogden felt the hot wetness of Climer’s tongue fis.h.i.+ng around inside his mouth. He felt the sting of a hundred needles.

Then he felt the burning.

Climer sat up, looked down at him, wiped his lips with the back of his hand and smiled.

Ogden’s mouth was on fire.

“It won’t be long now, sir,” Climer said. “Not long at all.”

WELCOME TO DETROIT

“Mister Jenkins, are we there yet?”

“I think we’re close, Chelsea,” Mr. Jenkins said.

Chelsea was tired of driving. She followed along on the map. The long trip from g.a.y.l.o.r.d, then driving all over the city, looking for just the right place. The Winnebago rolled down an empty St. Aubin Street. Headlights played off abandoned buildings and lit up broken pavement. A light wind blew wisps of snow, invisible until they crossed in front of the headlights, then invisible again as they swept past. Even with a couple of inches of snow, they saw trash everywhere: newspapers, Doritos bags, chunks of broken wood, piles of broken bricks speckled with bits of mortar like ocean rocks dotted with barnacles.

“You wanted a secret place,” Mr. Jenkins said. “I think this area will do. This is the kind of Detroit we’ve been looking for.”

“There’s no one down here,” Mommy said. “It’s like a ghost town. You’d think there would at least be homeless, squatters.”

“Winter is hard on them,” Mr. Jenkins said. “Looks like these buildings don’t have electricity, so no heat unless they build a fire.”

“What about gangs?” Mommy asked. “Will we be safe here?”

Mr. Jenkins shrugged. “Pretty much. Look around you. What are the gangs going to do here? Freeze their a.s.ses off, that’s what. If we get out of sight and stay out of sight, we should be okay. It’s like most cities, I bet—you don’t f.u.c.k with people, people don’t f.u.c.k with you.”

“There’s that naughty word again, Mister Jenkins,” Chelsea said.

Mr. Jenkins hung his head. “I’m sorry, Chelsea.”

The Winnebago turned right on At.w.a.ter Street. On their left was a small, mostly empty marina opening onto the Detroit River. Ahead on the right, they saw a lone three-story brick building surrounded by vacant lots filled with rubble, broken fences and tall gra.s.s weighed down by snow. A faded blue band ringed the top of the building, flecked with reddish-tan where spots of original brick showed through. The words GLOBE TRADING COMPANY were painted on the blue in faded white letters.

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