The adrenalin had staved off the cold, but its effects were fading fast. They’d need to get out of their wet clothes, but there was nothing dry left anywhere in Heddlewick. They waded away from the end of the bridge in a tight group, holding on to each other in a chain for support, terrified that one or more of them would be washed away. Out here, though, they’d escaped the worst of the river’s flow. The foul-smelling water in this part of the village was relatively calm.
There was a hardware store on the edge of the flood with a large outdoor storage area enclosed by a wire-mesh fence that, from here, seemed to have held. The goods stored inside the yard had been scattered as if a hurricane had passed through, but the penned-in space looked relatively dry and free of dead flesh. Marcus w
