The next morning, Five woke after a surprisingly restful sleep, her hair messed up and her radio askew. After disentangling herself from the blankets, she stood up and stretched widely, scanning the still-safe Brunswick barricade. Most of the citizens were asleep, but some were stirring and preparing for the day.

Her headset had turned off overnight—probably to save the battery—and she clicked it on, hoping to hear a familiar voice.

"Hey, Sam? You awake?"

"Well then, look who's up and about," Sam responded cheerfully. "I hope you got your beauty sleep last night, Five. You've got a long day ahead of you."

"I know," Five said, hooking her backpack over her shoulders. "We've got to escort all these people back to Abel. When should we start?"

"Oh, no, we've got a different mission for you today," Sam corrected her. "Let me just check my mission sheet…" He trailed off, and Five could hear the faint rustling of papers. "Yeah… there's no mission sheet. You've seen my office. Or should I say… corrugated tower we decided was no good for a latrine. We have enough electricity to power the transmitter, but not enough some days for, oh, I dunno… light?" He emphasized the last word loudly. "Did you hear that, Janine?"

"What? You don't have any light?" Five asked, alarmed.

"It's okay. Don't you worry about me, Runner Five. Just trying to keep everything together here while Janine—what are you doing with the electricity, Janine?

"I'm rewiring it, Mr. Yao. No complaining. You know this was my place before you all arrived. And those tools we were expecting from the military base would be pretty useful right about now. Any word on that?"

"Oh yeah, right, right, right," Sam laughed nervously. "Yeah so, uh… we're sending you back to your crashed helicopter today to see if there's anything you can find in the wreckage. And… I'm sorry, Five, but…"

Five heard a loud cough behind her and spun around. "Well, hello there, Five," Runner Eight said, her politeness laced with poison. "We're on the road together again. Isn't that great?"

The two runners allowed some other Abel citizens to escort the Brunswick people back to base while they set off in the direction of the crashed helicopter at a steady jog, Runner Eight coughing the whole way.

"I'm pretty interested to see what we'll find in the chopper, you know," Eight panted suspiciously as the two runners put distance between themselves and Brunswick. "That's why I volunteered for this duty. I just can't help wondering about things." She let out another cough.

"Hey, Runner Five, Runner Eight," Sam called. "Listen, we're rewiring the electricity over here, and Janine's switching off transmission and scanner only for a few minutes." He sounded nervous. "Sorry about this, guys. You know, if I could do it all myself—"

"You'd be a very valuable asset to this base, Mr. Yao," Janine cut in icily, and the radio clicked off.

Five suddenly recognized where they were. She had stumbled through the wilderness here the day of the crash, and the area gave her the chills. Shaking off her nervousness, she continued on with Eight until they reached a clearing.

They had reached the crashed chopper. It looked even worse than Five remembered; she could only identify the cockpit by the body that still lay in it and—

Wait… a body?

"Holy…" Eight uttered in disgust. "Is that your pilot?"

The pilot's cinnamon-colored skin had turned a sickly green. Five inched forward slowly to get a better look, her stomach churning as she saw what couldn't really pass as a body.

"She must have been left half-eaten like that strapped to her seat in the chopper," Eight whispered, swallowing hard. "Now she's dead and—"

Eight's explanation was interrupted by a loud groan and a shudder. The chopper's entire cockpit shook, and the two runners staggered backward in shock. With a loud rip, the pilot tore her seat belt off and stumbled out of the cockpit, her rotting eyeballs now focused on the runners in hunger.

"Holy Mary, mother of God!" Eight shrieked. "RUN!"