Summary

Mark Spitz recalls a night before his time at Zone One, when he stumbled across a big home on the edge of Massachusetts. He called into the house because two dead lingered behind him in the woods. Members of the house reluctantly let him in. Inside he met Margie, Jerry, and Tad. They had all met in this house, which they found abandoned. That night, they shared Last Night stories—Margie was the only one to escape a community pillaged by bandits. Jerry was in a community that had become a “backward people, stunted and medieval” (176). After they talked, they invited him to stay the night and stay as long as he needed.

The next morning, the dead surrounded the house. None of them had yet to see a group of skels congregate around any one thing. The skels stayed and grew in...