The woman introduced herself officially by tossing the leftover bandage at him and saying, “My name’s Malina. You can help me put the bodies in the basement.”

Clint looked between her and the people in horror. They felt alive, or something like that. Their bodies were flesh-heavy and limp and when they hit the ground they made a sound like soup in a plastic bag.

Clint leaned over the hole and retched. “How are we supposed to get the food out of there now?”

“Food doesn’t mean anything in this game.”

“Then why do you have so much of it?”

Malina smirked sideways at him. “I thought it did, on my first day. I don’t know how many trips across that damn road I wasted carrying shit I’d never get hungry for.”

They got to the fourth and last body. Clint picked the man up by his shoulders, wincing as the shattered remains of his skull smeared scarlet gore all over his sweater. He gasped through his teeth and asked, “How long have you even been doing this?”

“I don’t know. There’s no time in here, not really.” She swung her injured left arm forward and backward, as if testing the ache of it. “It’s always day time. The weather changes, once in a while. And sometimes they come hunting up and down the street. Usually, I don’t have any shouty idiots on my porch getting their attention.”

Clint almost replied, Well, I’m not the one who fired a shotgun, but he bit back his sharpness. Instead he said, “You called her Florence.”

“She’s been here as long as I have. She amassed the biggest collection of guns and beer and boys.” Malina shrugged. “People found out real quick that you either join Florence, or she kills you.”

“What happens when she runs out of people to kill? When it’s just her people left?”

“Oh, I think she’s close to finding out.” Malina kicked open her back door, leaving behind a scarlet shoe print. The men’s trailing gore carried their tracks all through the living room, dining room, kitchen. It would have looked like a house from a Norman Rockwell painting if it weren’t for all that blood. “I’m sure they’ll get rabid on each other. That’s the point of this game, anyway.”

“Is it?” Clint’s heart pulsed hard against his ribs. Every time he let himself think about Rachel, he felt as if the world was dipping away from him. He managed, “So how do we get to the next level?”

“No one knows.”

“Are you serious?”

Malina whirled on him. "What kind of question is that? If I knew how to get to the second level, I wouldn't still be here." She just rolled her eyes and kept going before he could answer.

Her backyard was neatly coiffed, the garden full of bright sighing flowers and bees. Tire tracks gouged twin snakes through the grass, and her entire eastern wall of fencing had been struck down and lay in a dented heap on the earth. She walked through the big gap in the fence, crouching low. Her thick curls sat in a tall, tight bun on her head, and she had to fold down low to keep her hair from peeking over the top of the fence.

“Where are we going?”

Malina took her map out of her pocket and offered it to Clint, wordlessly. “Every marked house is one that Florence and her buddies use for an outpost.”

Clint stared down at the map. She had filled in the entire inner rim of the first level of hell. The little houses were drawn in squares of yellow and blue and green, like the edging of a blanket. Random ones were marked with dark penciled Xs. Rachel had loved to crochet. (No, he corrected himself. Loves. Rachel is present tense.) It looked like one of her strange and lovely patterns, random and ordered at the same time, somehow. She was so good at color. That’s what he thought of, when he closed his eyes and tried to imagine her. Her bright green eyes. All her colors, and the way she wore the light.

The faraway rattle of bullets snapped Clint back to the present moment. Malina paused, bent down in front of him, just listening. She held out her hand wordlessly behind her, and Clint paused for a moment before handing her map back. He fished his own out of his hoodie pocket. Malina’s house was colored in a bright blue. He had only a sliver of the houses that she had.

“Where’s your place?” she muttered at him.

Clint just stared for a moment. Then pointed at the yellow house just a few blocks away from them.

Together they crawled through backyards and clambered over white picket fences. Once, when they passed through someone’s yard, one of the curtains in the back window twitched in the corner of Clint’s eye. He twisted his head around to see a girl glaring through the glass at them. Her pistol watched them like a periscope as they passed, but she didn’t try to stop them.

His own backyard was empty, the tall fence unbroken. Clint pulled out his map and watched the new areas spread like an ink stain across the paper. And already they were back at the first spot that had ever been on his map.

For a moment he and Malina paused there, backs pressed against the fence. He murmured to her, “How do you tell if anyone’s in there?”

The woman cracked open her shotgun and checked the bullets. Smoothed her thumb over them as if for good luck. Then she snapped the gun shut and gave Clint a tight, tired smile. “We go inside, honey. How else do you think?” She squeezed Clint’s forearm reassuringly when she saw the look in his eye. “The trick is to check the walls by the door as you’re walking in. They like to hide in corners, or just around the frame.”

Clint didn’t need to ask who. Not anymore. He knew now that the other players were a bigger threat than he had ever imagined.

They crept into the house back-to-back. Malina lead the way, her shotgun snuffing out the closest corners of the before she even stepped all the way inside. Then she and Clint both crept through the back door. His tennis shoes felt eerily loud against the laminate, as if he was announcing himself with every step. Together they scoured every room of his little house and found nothing and no one.

“Do you have a basement or an attic?” Clint stared at her, blankly, until Malina rolled her eyes and pressed, “Everyone has at least one. It’s where most of your loot is. I have a theory that Florence got both, lucky twat.” Her scowl was irritated, as if Florence had taken too many free cookies, not hoarded every gun she could find. “We’ll find it. Come on.”

Clint hurried after her.

“Move shit,” she explained. “If you had an attic it’d be obvious. They always like to hide the basement under rugs or furniture.” Together, they heaved aside the couch. Malina grinned at the trapdoor hiding underneath.

She heaved it open and pulled a flashlight out of her pocket. It speared the darkness, revealing nothing but more shadows still. There seemed to be shelves down there, boxes, but Clint couldn’t pick out much more.

“After you,” Malina told him.

They descended into the darkness together. Malina scanned her flashlight around and cried out in delight when she saw a lantern sitting on the shelf. She flicked it on, and it filled the room with a dim orange glow.

“Solar-powered,” she explained to him. “That’s decent. I’m surprised it has a charge.”

“Why did you help me?”

Malina paused and stared at him. She leaned back against the shelves and shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“You seemed pretty happy to let me die for a few moments there.”

That made the woman laugh. It was a broken sound, joyless and hollow. She palmed the sweat away from her forehead. “Death has my son.” Her dark eyes were shiny and unreadable as a stone. “He’s eleven.”

“Oh, god. Shit. I’m so sorry.”

“Why? You didn’t do anything.” Malina turned away from him and flicked her flashlight over the shelves. He pretended not to notice her raise her hand to smear at her eyes. “The point is, I’m not in this for me, either.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “So we might as well stick together.”

Clint felt like reaching out and crushing her in a hug. But he only stood there nodding, his gun heavy in his back pocket. He wanted to tell her about Rachel and the way she sounded when she said his name or the way she looked at him like no one ever had. But he couldn’t describe any of that any more than he could describe the feeling of clear cold air. It was life and everything and without her he would be lost.

So he said instead, “Let’s see what kind of shit Death decided to give me.”