Leaving Milly completely defenseless was bad, but keeping the other people in the building from having guns is what really caused all of this, and it sparked a conversation where he recommended Alan just allow everyone to at least have a pistol. If Calvin had been able to come out and press a gun to the back of Ed's head, he wouldn't have lost an eye.

  "It sounds like a good idea on paper, kid, but you gotta think about it a little more," Alan explained. "You think giving people easy access to a gun when the world is like this is a good idea? It's like I told you before, they can get by without doing anything drastic because it ain't easy, but some nights…"

  "I see where you're coming from, but maybe it's been long enough that you can risk trusting them not to punch their own ticket."

  And even if they did, it'd be their own choice.

  There was some more back and forth, but all he could do was give Alan his opinion and hope it made a difference. Ultimately, Alan decided to hand out pistols to everyone and gave those who didn’t know the basics a quick rundown on how to hold and maintain a gun.

  For obvious reasons, Jesse had to be excluded.

  While guns were being handed out, Alan showed Clay something familiar - Kyle's gun.

  "Here you go! You can finally ditch that ugly thing and get back to usin' a real revolver!"

  "If it's all the same to you, I'd actually prefer to stick with the Rhino."

  "Son of a bitch."

  "Maybe it'd be better if you framed it." Clay looked to the side. Now that the asshole patrol was gone, he was going to have to start cleaning his gun again. "It was convenient, but I'm sure you don't want some stranger walking around with your brother's gun."

  "Stranger, huh? That what you are? You just say that sorta thing like it ain't nothin’." Alan placed Kyle's gun to the side and retrieved something else. "We still strangers if I give you this?"

  He produced a dark brown denim jacket and waved it in his direction like it was a flag.

  After the clothes he used to wear had to be thrown out after the incident with Ronny, he was thankful for something new. Was it really such a big deal, though?

  "Haha!" Alan barked. "That look on your face tells me you don't understand what you're lookin' at. You see, this is the jacket I used to wear when I was around your age!"

  Clay's eyes went wider than he thought possible. That couldn't be the case - it had to be a lie. That jacket looked like it was only one size bigger than his last one.

  "It ain't that shocking, kid…"

  "Ah, no, I was just surprised you'd let me wear something like that."

  Unfortunately, it had gotten so cold outside that he needed to wear a heavier second layer over his new jacket when they went out to meet with Radman.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  In order not to put Clay at risk or impede his healing, Radman agreed to meet them on the roof of a building that was basically across the street from Alan's complex.

  "You look terrible, Sadman!"

  The swelling was steadily getting better, but Clay still sported a black eye. He tried to adjust his new beanie in a way that would cover the injury up with his hair.

  "It'll be in trend next season," Clay claimed.

  "I thought I'd have to be spending my next season in a different city after you guys dragged your feet getting back to me." Radman attempted to cut off any of Alan's complaints by quickly adding, "Of course, I know that some things can't be helped."

  But Alan wasn't having any of that. "Yeah, not only did the kid get his ass kicked for you, but I almost lost my family on this bullshit."

  "And I want you to know that I fully understand all of that. So let me start things off by thanking both of you for helping me take care of this." Radman gestured toward Alan's building. "Not that you had much of a choice. Let me also say that your stout hearts won't go unrewarded."

  Clay had already noticed the duffel bag that Radman tried to keep just out of sight, likely so he could turn him showing them what's inside into a dramatic affair. Which he did, in fact, try to do.

  "There was a lot of risk involved, but we got through it because we all worked together. Behold, the symbol of our pact!" Radman held up a jar filled with an unidentifiable, violet-blue liquid. Within that liquid was also a series of wires connecting to nodes stuck to a brain. The wires bundled together and diverged at two points near the top of the jar, where some of them were slipped through a tiny hole on the side of the jar into a 9-volt battery and some continued upwards into a small antenna that had been made to be a part of the lid itself. The hole on the side was sealed with tape and the wires themselves to prevent any leakage.

  "Is that an actual brain?" Clay asked, leaning in to get a closer look at it.

  "Ain't nobody said shit about us makin' any sort of pact!" Alan fixated instead, despite what was in front of him.

  "Really?" Radman's theatrical pace was broken at once. "I believed it just went without saying at this point."

  "We were on our way to tell you to fuck off when we got jumped by those dickheads for the first time. Now that they're gone, we don't want any of that sorta trouble around here no more."

  Even though he'd come to know Alan decently well, Clay still hadn’t expected this reaction. He thought it was possible that the time they spent having to work together alone might have done something to strengthen their relationship and settle their differences. Maybe the fact that they didn't have to fight anyone that day had been the problem.

  "Whatever, man." Radman held the jar out further so that Clay could see. "I'm mostly just showing my appreciation to Sadman at this point."

  "Show your appreciation all you want, but I came here today to go with the plan me and 'Sadman' had weeks ago!"

  "Radman," Clay stood up straight and looked at him expectantly, "you mind giving me and Alan a minute alone to talk about this?"

  "No problem! You guys probably should have had this discussion before you even came here, but what do I know? Take all the time you need!"

  Radman stood there for a full ten seconds with Clay and Alan staring at him.

  "Oh, you meant I should…" He trailed off, then stepped to the other side of the roof to stare at his brain jar as if he'd find something new inside of it, only occasionally sneaking glances over at them.

  Clay didn't want to disagree with Alan right in front of Radman and undermine his authority, even if it was obvious to everyone involved what was going to happen. The fact that Alan didn't immediately stonewall him and stick to his guns was actually a little surprising.

  "I know what you're gonna say, kid." Alan was doing a terrible job not looking annoyed with him. "You're going to say we should just join hands with this guy and let bygones be bygones."

  Clay nodded without saying anything.

  "And I'm gonna tell you that it ain't all about these hard feelings I got about all that. This is also about keeping my people safe." Alan momentarily pointed at the eye Clay was covering up. "It was just ten guys and we barely got out, and it weren't clean neither. We were already gonna tell this guy to kick rocks before my woman and my goddamn kid got dragged into it, so I dunno how you think you're gonna make this fly with me, but I'm lettin' you try because I know you ain't stupid."

  Clay nodded again. "Everything you said is right. Your concerns are completely valid and you have the final say, no matter what. I just want to say that I think it's too late to try backing out now."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "It means that we know the asshole patrol were in contact with their home base often enough that this other player already knows about us. We were probably the only suspects, so once it becomes clear that they're not coming back, we're going to be at the top of a very short list of people to question."

  They knew that they were in contact with their leader because Radman had told Clay during their day together that he set them up with long-distance radio systems they could transport in cars. When Radman and Alan went to their base and didn't find a radio there, Radman proposed the idea that they had to leave the car and thus the bulky radio outside the city because cars are Crowder bait.

  If this were the case, then the delay in them taking action after Clay got back in touch with Radman had probably been because they couldn't get that information until one of them journeyed back to the car to use the radio.

  Alan crossed his arms, eyebrows knitting up. "Ain't that more reason to try and put as much divide between us and Dick as possible?"

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  "That's one way to look at it. From my perspective, it's more like we've already chosen a side, like it or not. Plus they were only being so 'nice' to us before because the stakes stopped at finding Radman. Now it's going to be about finding Radman and avenging their fallen comrades."

  "That's only if they realize they're dead in the first place, ain't it?"

  "I've had suspicions about how they knew Radman was talking to people. My belief is that this other player has a Skill that lets him keep track of people, and if he's able to keep up on Radman's rough location and status, then it's not unfair to think he was doing the same for Ed and the others."

  Alan worked his jaw.

  "If I'm right, then he already knows they're dead. On the very real chance that this turns into something severe, we might need whatever help he can offer us. Even if keeping Crowders away is a bust, just having regular power would be a big help to you."

  Alan's eyes were drilling into him with as much scrutiny as Radman was giving to his brain jar.

  "I also meant what I said at the gas station. I know he did you wrong, and you have the right to be angry, but I like him. I don't believe he's a bad person."

  Alan let out a breath he likely hadn't known he'd been holding, eyes darting between Clay and the jar-staring Radman.

  "If it weren't for you," Alan began with growing irritation, then sighed and started again normally. "If it weren't for you, that Popper would have gotten me killed. If that weren't enough, who knows what woulda' happened to Angie if you hadn't been there. You don't ever ask me for much, so I'm deciding to let 'ya have this one."

  As if to cut off any joy he might feel, Alan sharply added, "But he ain't movin' back in, and if shit goes sideways because of this, you're gonna be at the top of a very short list of asses that're gonna get kicked. Sound fair?"

  Clay nodded. Sounded fair enough to him.

  "And you're the one who's gonna be doing most of the talkin' where he's concerned. I never liked talkin' to theater kids, so I'll just cut in whenever executive decisions gotta be made or if I got questions of my own."

  And so a proper discussion began.

  Clay was sitting on a white plastic chair that had been left up there so long that it had permanent stains he couldn't simply wipe away, so he used the gathering snow on top of it as a cushion. "So let's just start with the brain. I can tell you're dying to get into it."

  "This is the proof of concept for my anti-Crowder device!" Radman said with such aplomb that Clay would never think he was having to pick up where he left off. "Let me ask you a question, Sadman! Have you noticed something strange about the way Crowders react to sound?"

  Clay thought back to his experiences and every time he's ever had to use [Sound of Silence]. If anyone should know how zombies react to sound, it would be him.

  There was only one thing that immediately came to mind.

  "I thought it was weird how they don't react to the noises other Crowders make a lot of the time, yet they lured like twenty to my location when they were causing a ruckus while chasing after me."

  That first day felt like so long ago now.

  "Why do you think that is?" Radman slowly turned the jar in his hands.

  I thought this was supposed to be an explanation…

  But it was an important question. Radman hinted to him that all these things had meaning, so what was he getting at?

  His first thought was pheromones, but if they could work over such a distance, then how come other zombies only knew to come when noise was made?

  He fixated on the Spooker of all things, how it made him feel, and stared at the brain jar.

  Whoa.

  "Is it…some kind of mental signal?"

  "That's one point for Sadman!" Radman complimented while shooting a glance at Alan.

  "Ain't like you asked me," Alan quipped.

  "This is an open quiz. If you think you know the answer, feel free to jump in."

  "Ain't like I asked neither."

  "I was spotted by a Spooker once," Clay tried to get the conversation back on track. "It marked me before I knew it was there and I got this tingly feeling."

  "I can't speak to exactly how the Spooker's ability functions, but I believe that all zombies operate on some sort of psychic network." Radman set the jar aside and pulled out a notepad with illustrations to help explain his point. It was a lot of little green things with wi-fi symbols above their heads. "Whenever a Crowder makes noise in its everyday, I believe it sends out signals letting other zombies know not to bother coming to check it out."

  Clay nodded along.

  Alan was there.

  "So when it makes noise while in active pursuit of a human, it sends out mealtime signals! My current hypothesis is that there's some mechanism we can't understand that allows their brainwaves to 'ride' sound waves."

  "That don't make any fuckin' sense." Alan was there, louder this time.

  Radman craned his head to look at some of his own diagrams while still holding it out for them. "It doesn't sound very plausible, I agree. However, even if that isn't exactly how it works, I know for a fact that my idea about the psychic network is more or less spot on. As for what you said, Sadman, I think the Spookers might somehow have the ability to plant an ongoing mealtime signal on people. The fact that they can do this without making any noise doesn't make sense under my current theory, but there'll surely be developments in the future that will clear everything up! Even if those developments come after our lifetime, they'll surely come!"

  Clay looked back over to the jar. "So that's…"

  "A prototype! A proof of concept! Back with my old group, I'd just started getting a feel for which parts of the brain send which signals when energy is applied to them. The problem is that I have to stimulate multiple parts of the brain at once in a certain way to send the signal I want. Different sections of the brain also require different levels of charge; too low and it's pointless, even a little too high and I accidentally fry my current specimen."

  Radman followed Clay's eyes to the jar. He was beaming with pride.

  "The only way to find out what parts of the brain to stimulate and in what way is through rigorous trial and error. After hundreds of trials, this is my first success."

  "You mean to tell me," Alan spoke to Radman more casually than he ever had, "this thing can ward off Crowders?"

  "This one? Of course not! All it can do is attract a Crowder's attention from a very short range. Not desirable, but it proves my ideas have merit!"

  Clay tilted his head. "I saw a YouTube video that talked about the brain once and I'm pretty sure one of those nodes is attached to the part of the brain that controls muscle movement - the uh…the sara-something."

  "The cerebellum. On a normal human brain, that might be where the cerebellum would be, but I'm 100% certain the virus physically reconfigures the brain. If you had a chart of a normal human brain in front of you, you could probably see the differences." He shrugged. "Normal neuroscience as we know it can hardly be applied to these things."

  Even though Alan had told Clay he'd be taking a hands-off approach to the conversation, his interjections were frequent enough that he was considered no different from another active participant.

  "You mean GlubeTube?" He asked Clay.

  "What'd I say?"

  "Yoo-Tube."

  "Oh, my mistake."

  Radman gave Clay a knowing look before moving on, "Maybe if it were possible to have the top of someone's skull cut open while they're turning into a zombie, I could observe how their grey matter moves and have some idea where the hardware is going…"

  Clay and Alan had the same expression on their faces.

  "Of course, I'd never suggest that!"

  Now Clay was trying to move on, "I was under the impression you were an engineer or something. How do those expertise translate to you being able to make stuff like psychic wave brain jars?"

  "Besides rigging up electrodes and regulating energy flow? They don't translate at all!" Radman tapped his temple with his finger. "A mark of true intelligence is the ability to adapt to your environment. I had only surface-level knowledge of the human brain before all this, but all the world's knowledge still exists in books and whatnot that allow prodigies like me to thrive."

  Clay had to be reminded that books with actually useful knowledge existed out in the wild. His mind usually skipped over them without even thinking about it in favor of fiction.

  "Plus I have something that most studying neuroscientists don't! I have access to an unlimited amount of specimens! You wouldn't believe how much this speeds up the learning process!" He cast his arms wide. "Friends, this world has not ended; it's only on hiatus! With me as your leader, we'll return civilization right back to the peak!"

  "Suddenly you're the leader?" Alan scoffed derisively. "Sorry, you gotta be this tall to tell me what to do."

  "Sorry to say, but…" Clay trailed off, distracted by something he only just now noticed about Radman. "Do…Have you always tucked your pants into your socks like that?"

  "Yeah," Radman responded with sudden, defensive plainness. "What about it?"

  "Nothing! Just…" Clay cleared his throat. "Anyways, there's no debate about Alan being the leader."

  "Well, that's not great, but I suppose I can stomach it if I see this more like contracting work. You help me with my experiments, we can both reap the rewards. I also don't mind installing those solar panels for you once I get that going as a type of upfront payment in case my Crowder Deflection Program doesn't pan out."

  "And how exactly are we meant to help you?" Alan demanded.

  I thought I was taking the lead in the discussions!

  "Well, as you so like to point out, I don't have the stature to fight Crowders, let alone detain them. If I'm going to figure this out, I'm going to need a constant supply of intact Crowder brains." Radman referenced his diagrams again. "If I remember correctly, Alan liked decapitating his zombies. If you collect the heads after doing that, then we should be in business!"

  "Your ass is gonna be in charge of lugging the heads around," Alan immediately told Clay.

  Fuck you.

  "That's fine."

  Radman finally put the diagrams to the side. "If this all works out, I can work on a more sophisticated design that constantly emits 'do not disturb (DND)' waves. I can't make any promises about it working on the other zombie types, but even just not having to deal with Crowders anymore would be a huge deal, right?"

  "We're not gonna be doin' anything close to helpin' you until the kid's back in tip-top shape."

  "Works for me!" Radman assured. "I'd feel bad if Sadman died just because he pushed himself too hard on my account."

  Clay had a thought similar to the one he had when Alan first took him in. Wasn't this a bit much?

  "You're seriously getting into it with us right now. Is it okay to divulge this much information?"

  Radman poked his chin in thought, but he did so from a similar angle to how he'd poked his temple. "There's not much to it besides that you've earned a little bit of trust from me. This is the only way I know how to show my favor."

  Clay smiled bashfully. What was he supposed to say to that?

  "Also, no disrespect, but I believe that the combined IQ points between the two of you would only come halfway to matching mine. Even with everything I've told you, I highly doubt you'd be able to accomplish anything without my assistance."

  "Just because you said 'no disrespect' doesn't mean you can say whatever the hell you want." Alan's pressure made Clay subtly step between them in case he had to act as a wall. "I'm also pretty sure IQ points and all that stuff is just bullshit."

  "Weird how I've only ever heard stupid people say that." Radman finally responded to Alan's aggression, even making a face at him.

  Their disposition was night and day, but the similarities between his cousin and Radman left a sour taste in Clay's mouth.

  He ultimately liked Radman, but that arrogance was grating even on someone that Clay loved very much. It was probably a good thing Alan decided they wouldn't have to share a living space with him.

  The rest of the details were quickly hammered out.

  Clay and Alan would do their best to procure Crowder heads for Radman's project. They'd also stay on the lookout for parts and tools that he specified and bring them to him if it didn't send them out of their way or put them in danger.

  "Food and water would also be appreciated!" Radman threw in at the tail-end of the discussion.

  "We're in a bad shape on that front because me and the kid ain't been able to go out right," Alan snapped. "Plus I let you take half of the shit we found at their camp."

  "I'm not hurting for food at the moment, but if you’re ever in the area and you believe you're carrying a little too much, then please feel free to unload those pesky surplus rations at my workshop."

  "Yeah, sure," Alan agreed unconvincingly.

  "I'm thinking about your health as well. It wouldn't help your cause at all if you were to gain any more weight."

  "You even do any welding with those goggles, little man? Or do 'ya just wear them to distract from the fact that you're balding."

  "I'm not balding, you fat idiot! I shave my head so that there's no chance a Crowder can latch onto me!"

  Alan spared Clay a glance. "That's one thing you could learn from him if I'm bein' honest."

  "Why am I taking strays here?" Clay threw his hands up but stuffed them back into his jacket pockets to protect from the chill.