The major was the first one to die. I helped bury her, as best I could. It hadn’t been the disease—it’d been a bullet. Even as we pushed her body down into the grave, I could see the evidence of the ravages of the sickness all over her. Her skin looked like it was splitting, with dozens of weeping pustules all over the place. She had swollen abscesses rising from some parts, and one of her eyes had sealed shut.