Zone One

On Saturday, the team are continuing their work through Zone One when they encounter the members of team Bravo named Angela, No Mas, and Carl. Team Bravo claim that Omega is encroaching upon their assigned territory. As they consider getting in contact with Fort Wonton to settle the matter, they realize that all their communication devices are down. Angela chalks it up to the negligence of Fabio, the Lieutenant’s second-in-command. To figure out what is happening, Kaitlyn sends Mark back to Fort Wonton to get some answers.

On the way to Fort Wonton, Mark makes a detour to a restaurant he would frequent with his parents as a child. He reminisces about the past and considers what it might be like for the world to persist if comprised entirely of stragglers. As he continues on his way, he runs into Bozeman, Fort Wonton’s top military clerk, and Ms. Macy, a public-relations official from Buffalo, the central headquarters of military operations. Ms. Macy tells Mark of plans to rebuild Zone One for the impending summit, where world leaders can witness firsthand the improvements in Zone One. She hopes that she can report back to Buffalo of Zone One’s success to inspire hope for future reconstruction efforts. When the three of them come across the Disposal team, members Annie and Lilly ask Ms. Macy about the rumors concerning the breaching of Bubbling Brooks, a stronghold where the Tromanhauser Triplets resided. Ms. Macy confirms that one of the triplets has died when the skels broke through the walls of Bubbling Brooks. She also shiftily avoids the Disposal team’s requests for more equipment and supplies. The team insists that they need more cranes and incinerators as the current equipment is working overtime to burn the skels and in the process is filling the sky with ash. Before retreating to Fort Wonton, Ms. Macy vaguely refers to “reversals” and “complications” (189) in Buffalo that are preventing the distribution of more equipment and supplies. 

Bozeman accidentally reveals to Mark that the Lieutenant committed suicide during his trip to Buffalo. At a helipad, the Lieutenant set off a grenade he’d put in his mouth. Mark informs the others of the news of the Lieutenant’s death. Later that night, they hold an impromptu memorial for the Lieutenant and consider whether reconstruction is possible, despite the disasters surrounding them. Mark proposes grimly to Kaitlyn, “Maybe it’s corrected now” (217), meaning that the decimation of the human population has come to an end and they are here to rebuild from what is left. In a rare show of vulnerability, Kaitlyn shares hopefully, “I’m here because there’s something worth bringing back” (217).

In recollections of the Lieutenant, team Omega recall how the Sunday ritual of getting drunk with their superior began. During Omega’s early days at Fort Wonton, the Lieutenant had assigned teams Omega and Gamma to the task of sweeping up the subway tunnels, surprisingly joining them on the dangerous mission at the last minute. When Gamma proposed splitting up, the Lieutenant decided to go with Omega. During their separation, Gamma was attacked by a group of skels locked into a station agent booth, and Omega arrived too late to save them. Mark assumed that the Lieutenant felt guilty about that day, but also expressed his favoritism of Omega. One Sunday, the Lieutenant invited the members of Omega to drink with him, and they spent every Sunday thereafter performing the same ritual with their superior.

In one of Mark’s flashbacks in this section, he recalls meeting Mim (Miriam Cohen Levy) at a toy store in Connecticut in the first few months following the Last Night. As it was winter, Mark and Mim barricaded the doors of the toy store and kept each other warm during those cold months. They eventually formed a romantic relationship. Mim shared the story of her Last Night, during which she arrived at her friend’s house to pick up her kids only to discover that the virus had overtaken them. Mim had ran, eventually finding herself at a human settlement in a mansion. The human settlement was peaceful for a time until one of the inhabitants became delirious and opened the doors of the mansion to the skels outside. Mim had luckily packed an escape bag and escaped unscathed.

When the weather grew warmer, Mark proposed that they remain in the toy store. However, Mim was reluctant to stay in one place for too long and left one morning without Mark.

Mark drew from Mim’s survival tips when he came upon a human settlement in Northampton, Massachusetts sometime after Mim left. He came across a safe house that permitted him entry after he offered them a can of clams in exchange for a place to stay. The members—Jerry, Margie, and Tad—eventually welcomed him to their daily routines. One day, they noticed that some of the skels were starting to gather around the gates of their house. They decided to wait it out, believing that the skels would eventually leave. However, more skels would gather at the gates over time until there became too many to kill with their limited weapons. Mark remembered Mim’s practice of keeping an escape bag packed in case one of the inhabitants cracked. The day came when Margie opened the doors to the skels, in the attempt to kill them with makeshift firebombs. Margie winds up killing Jerry in the process. Mark attempted to escape with Tad just when the National Guard broke through and rescued them. That day, Mark was brought to Camp Screaming Eagle for the first time.

This section also reveals that Gary eventually gets injured by a skel. During his last moments, he asks Mark to tell the story behind his name. Mark reveals that after Camp Screaming Eagle, he was brought to Happy Acres, where he helped with food inventory for a while. Growing restless, he decided to sign up with the North Corridor operation to clear the congested I-95 highway connecting Washington D.C. to Boston.

Teamed with Quiet Storm and Richie, the three were tasked with clearing the wreckage to restore a pathway between the two cities. During their mission, Quiet Storm pursued the odd task of rearranging the cars into specific positions to spell out a message for onlookers in the sky. The mission was peaceful until Richie opened a large truck to reveal several skels inside it. As there were too many of them, Quiet Storm and Richie decided to escape by leaping from the bridge into the water. They beckoned Mark to follow but instead he shot at all the skels until they were all dead. Later, the others asked why he didn’t jump into the water with them. Mark lied and said that he could not swim, prompting them to nickname him “Mark Spitz,” after the Olympic swimmer.