“Japs too?”
He smiled at her and nodded. “Japs, too. I tracked them all. Let's be moving along now — your dad will be worrying about you.” He opened the door on the opposite side of the car away from the two bodies and helped her out, to lead the way along the erratic, running trail she had left.
The small patch of woods in which she had hidden were not too far distant nor difficult to find. He didn't waste time in trying to follow her wandering footsteps through the woods, but instead began an encircling motion designed to carry him in a complete arc around the trees. A quarter of a mile from where he began, he located the trampled snow where the girl and her two pursuers had entered the woods. Standing there, sighting across the snow, he saw the body as a patch of dark clothing against the white.
“You wait right here,” he told Sandy. “I'll get Lee.”
She leaned against a cold tree and watched him go.
A part of Lee Hoffman's body had been stripped bare and the flesh cut away. Gary paused for long minutes, staring down at it, gripping his lower lips between his teeth. In an absent sort of way he had speculated on this, had foreseen it if the quarantine lasted long enough and the contaminated survivors grew hungry enough. There had been authenticated reports of it happening among marooned Japanese soldiers during the last war — when the food gave out, the prisoners suffered if there were any, and if not, then one of the soldiers became the unwilling victim. The strongest and the most unprincipled will stay alive in some way, even when that way is winnowed down to cannibalism.
Sooner or later, Gary reflected bitterly, it had to happen east of the Mississippi. Thanks to the damned army and their quarantine, their river patrols. And now here it was.
He stooped low over the body of the boy and wrapped it in clothing, covering it completely so that the girl would see nothing amiss. Hoisting the body over one shoulder and swinging the shotgun in his free hand, he turned and called to Sandy She came running
“Is he… is he dead?”
“Yes. Let's take him back home now.”