The truck bed still held a slight warmth from the prior lookout, faint vibrations traveling up through the metal frame and into Jack’s boots as he climbed up and settled along the side rail he’d claimed earlier. The rain had thinned to a mist, barely there now, but the air still carried that damp heaviness—the kind that clung to fabric and skin and made everything smell more alive than it should.

  He sat with his back against the cab, forearms resting loosely across his knees, eyes tracking the barricade seam he’d been told to watch. Beyond it, the ditch gleamed faintly under lantern spill. Bodies lay where they had been dragged earlier, darkened further by rain and time. Nothing moved.

  His thoughts did.

  They wouldn’t stay still long enough to examine. One question would rise—about the power grid still humming in that farmhouse, about the silhouettes in the field that hadn’t pursued him, about the saliva pooling in his mouth when fear spiked—and before he could pin it down, it frayed. Unspooled. Something else would intrude. The convoy. The range. The man in the street folding over a truck hood and still watching him as it drove away.

  He tried to line them up. To sort cause from effect.

  The line never held.

  It was like pulling thread from a sweater in the dark—no clear beginning, no clean end, just unraveling that refused to become anything coherent.

  The camp’s rhythm moved around him. Hammering slowed. Voices softened. Someone laughed once, short and surprised, then hushed themselves instinctively. The dogs had settled near the perimeter, the retriever lying with its head on crossed paws, ears twitching at distant sounds only it seemed to register.

  Jack’s eyelids dipped once.

  Then again.

  He jerked upright the first time, annoyed with himself. The second time, he didn’t.

  Fatigue didn’t arrive like panic had. It crept. A steady pressure behind the eyes. A heaviness in the limbs that felt less like weakness and more like gravity increasing by degrees. The unraveling thoughts didn’t stop—they just blurred into each other until none of them held weight.

  After a while—minutes, hours, it was impossible to tell—he climbed down.

  Martin stood near the eastern seam, one hand resting on a length of rebar braced between two vehicles. He glanced up as Jack approached.

  “I gotta find some sleep,” Jack said quietly.

  Martin studied him in that brief, measuring way he had—taking in posture, the way Jack’s shoulders sloped slightly now, the faint hollowness under his eyes. Then he nodded.

  “There’s open cots on the other side of camp,” he said, pointing past the fire toward the cluster of larger tents near the substation wall. “Communal for now. Whoever needs it, takes it. No one’s claiming territory. We just keep rotating. Stay rested. Stay ready.”

  He said it like a rule he was still convincing himself would hold.

  There was something like a grin there—but thinner than humor. A reflection of what they had forced into existence between buses and scrap lumber and the quiet understanding that sleep was no longer comfort. It was logistics.

  Jack nodded back. “All right, man. I’ll try to be back here after I catch some.”

  Martin clapped his shoulder once. Firm. Grounding. Then turned back toward the tree line.

  Jack walked.

  The camp had changed subtly in the last few hours. The earlier urgency had dulled into maintenance. The chef had banked the fire down to coals. The smell lingered anyway: grease, charred meat, faint sweetness from something caramelized. It mingled with wet canvas, damp soil, and the metallic trace left by rain on hot engine blocks.

  Lanterns hung low, light deliberately muted. Conversations happened in murmurs. A woman sat cross-legged near a stack of pallets, stitching something by headlamp. A man leaned against a truck fender, eyes closed but not sleeping, rifle resting upright between his boots.

  Jack passed the medical tent without looking inside this time.

  The communal sleeping tent stood a few yards beyond it—canvas pulled taut, guy lines staked tight in mud. He lifted the flap carefully.

  Two figures occupied cots near the far wall, both on their sides, breathing steady. One snored softly, uneven but human. The other lay so still Jack had to watch the blanket rise once to confirm.

  He stepped in, boots placed carefully between cot legs and supply crates. The air inside was warmer, thick with the layered scent of fabric and sweat and something medicinal carried faintly from next door.

  An empty cot waited near the entrance.

  Jack sank into it without ceremony. The canvas sagged beneath him, cradling weight he hadn’t realized he was carrying. His boots stayed on. One arm folded under his head. The other lay across his chest.

  He meant to think.

  He meant to review the last twenty-four hours like a sequence, to anchor himself in cause and effect.

  Instead, sleep struck like a trapdoor opening beneath him.

  One blink—and the camp was gone.

  —

  The sound didn’t belong to dream.

  It threaded through first as something distant, almost absorbed into whatever half-formed images sleep had conjured. A low whine. Not mechanical. Not wind.

  A dog.

  The whimper stretched into a strained growl.

  Jack’s eyes opened into dark canvas and muted lantern glow bleeding under the tent flap. His body felt heavy, unwilling to respond. The growl sharpened. A bark snapped through it—loud, urgent, wrong.

  Outside, boots shifted. Voices rose, still low but tightening.

  Another bark—closer now. Not playful. Not warning. Defensive.

  Jack pushed up on one elbow.

  The barking multiplied. The retriever’s deeper tone cut through the basset’s frantic staccato. Snarling now—teeth bared.

  The sound was coming from just beyond the sleeping tent.

  From the medical tent.

  Canvas rustled as someone outside moved quickly. A zipper tugged halfway, then stopped. Another voice, sharper:

  “Hey—what the hell—?”

  Jack swung his legs off the cot, feet hitting packed earth just as the medical tent flap snapped open.

  Dave rose from a cot and stepped out first, glasses half-down his nose. He barely made it two steps into the lantern light.

  The tent behind him convulsed.

  Not wind.

  Not someone stumbling.

  The canvas bulged outward violently as something inside struck it.

  Then it tore.

  A shape burst through the opening. Limbs jerking, jaw unhinged wide, IV tubing still trailing from one wrist like a severed tail.

  Her eyes were wrong—pupils blown wide, sclera webbed red. Her mouth opened in a sound that wasn’t pain and wasn’t language.

  She lunged.

  Dave didn’t have time to step back.

  The gunshot cracked across the barricade like lightning tearing metal.

  The sound flattened everything.

  The things head snapped sideways mid-lunge. The momentum carried her another inch forward before her body simply… forgot.

  She collapsed in a loose, final spill of limbs at Dave’s feet, IV line still swaying faintly.

  Silence followed so abruptly it rang.

  Smoke drifted from the rifle muzzle near the eastern seam. Martin stood braced, both hands steady, eyes locked on the fallen shape as if waiting for it to rise again.

  It didn’t.

  The dogs kept barking anyway—circling, snarling at the unmoving body until someone grabbed collars and hauled them back.

  Dave stood frozen for a full second, glasses askew, clipboard still in his hand.

  Then he stepped forward.

  Slowly.

  He crouched beside the body and pressed two fingers against the side of her neck, even though the absence was obvious. His jaw tightened once. No outward display. Just a recalibration behind the eyes.

  “Clear the tent,” he said quietly.

  No panic. No shouting.

  Just instruction.

  Around them, the camp had already shifted posture.

  Rifles up. Flashlights sweeping perimeter lines. A teenager scrambling onto a truck hood for elevation. Someone dragging the torn tent flap wider to expose the interior.

  The two sleeping figures in Jack’s tent were upright now, disoriented but alert. One whispered, “What the fuck—?”

  Jack stood in the lantern wash, pulse climbing again—not from the gunshot, not from the corpse.

  From the realization threading through the camp like a current:

  She hadn’t been bitten when she came in.

  The smoke from Martin’s rifle still drifted thin and bitter across the lantern light when Edith stepped into it.

  She moved fast but not frantic—boots cutting clean lines through mud that had only just begun to dry, shoulders squared, jaw set. The barking hadn’t startled her. The gunshot hadn’t either. It had focused her.

  The woman's body lay on its side where it had fallen, one arm bent under her chest at an unnatural angle. The IV tubing trailed from her wrist, clear line stained faintly pink where it had torn loose from the bag. The retriever strained against the grip of a young man holding its collar, hackles raised, teeth bared toward the corpse.

  Edith didn’t look at the dogs first.

  She looked at Dave.

  “She wasn’t bitten,” she said. Not a question. A statement pushed into the open air so no one could pretend they hadn’t heard it.

  Dave was still crouched, fingers hovering near The women’s throat as if waiting for something to contradict what he already knew. His glasses had slipped down again. His breath came shorter than it had a moment ago.

  “She wasn’t,” he said. The words felt forced through him. “No punctures. No tearing. I checked. Twice.”

  Edith stepped closer, eyes scanning the body clinically—neck, forearms, calves. No fresh trauma beyond the head wound Martin had delivered. No ragged crescents of teeth.

  “And she turned,” Edith said.

  “Yes.”

  The confirmation rippled outward. Not loud. Not dramatic. But it moved through posture. Through shoulders tightening. Through rifles being gripped a little harder than necessary.

  Behind them, the medical tent flap had been hauled open fully now. Lantern light spilled inside, exposing the remaining occupants.

  The man who had asked Edith earlier about the radio—face pale but conscious—sat half-upright on his cot, one hand gripping the edge of the mattress so tightly his knuckles had gone white. His eyes darted between the body and the armed figures outside. He looked afraid, but he did not look wrong. No blown pupils. No wet inhalation. No twitch beneath the skin.

  On the cot beside him, the other man remained flat on his back. His chest rose shallowly, uneven but steady. Sweat glazed his temples. His mouth hung open slightly. Even the gunshot hadn’t pulled him up from wherever he was suspended. He looked worse than before—drained, feverish—but not turned.

  Edith stepped into the tent threshold long enough to confirm it for herself. She met the conscious man’s eyes briefly.

  “Did she say anything?” she asked him.

  He swallowed. “She—she was quiet. Sleeping. I think. I didn’t—” His voice faltered. “I didn’t hear anything until the dogs.”

  Edith nodded once and stepped back out.

  Dave stood now, wiping his hands against a cloth that was already stained with antiseptic and old blood. The motion was too aggressive for cleaning.

  “We should re-inspect everyone,” he said abruptly. His voice had sharpened. “Every person in this camp. Full exam. Pupils, vitals, skin. We missed something. I must have missed something.”

  His gaze flicked to the remaining patients in the tent, then to the sleeping tent beyond, then to the ring of faces watching him.

  “There may be other signs,” he continued, words accelerating. “Early indicators. Subtle fever patterns. Neurological markers. If it’s progressing differently—if it’s airborne, or bloodborne in a way we don’t fully—”

  He cut himself off, jaw snapping shut.

  He inhaled once through his nose. Forced it slower on the exhale.

  Edith did not raise her voice.

  “Doctor.”

  The single word brought his eyes to hers.

  “We will re-inspect,” she said evenly. “But we are not going to panic the camp in the process. You and I will structure it. Quietly. Efficiently.”

  Her gaze moved to Martin, who still held his rifle at low ready, eyes scanning beyond the barricade as if expecting the shot to have drawn something from the trees.

  “Perimeter stays manned,” Edith continued. “No one abandons position. No one starts shouting theories.”

  A murmur had begun at the edge of the firelight—whispers of airborne, of infection, of how long until—she cut through it without looking.

  “Silence.”

  It wasn’t loud.

  The whispers stopped.

  She turned back to Dave. “You said no bites. Confirm again.”

  Dave nodded quickly, almost gratefully for instruction. He crouched once more beside the body and began a second examination—more invasive now. He rolled her onto her back, peeled back the collar of her shirt, ran hands along her spine, along her thighs. Lantern light exposed pale skin unmarred by teeth.

  “Nothing,” he said finally, voice lower. “No entry wounds. No external trauma besides—” He glanced at the bullet damage and stopped. “Besides what just happened.”

  Edith straightened.

  “How long was she under?” she asked.

  “Unconscious?” Dave shook his head faintly. “On and off. Fever earlier. Stabilized. Pulse steady before she slept.”

  “Temperature?”

  “Elevated, but not catastrophic.”

  Edith absorbed it without visible reaction.

  “Then we assume progression without visible bite,” she said. “Until proven otherwise.”

  The words landed heavy.

  Martin approached then, rifle slung but still within reach. His eyes flicked once to the body, then to Edith.

  “That shot’s gonna carry,” he said quietly. “If anything’s out there listening.”

  Edith nodded. “Double the east watch for the next hour. Quietly. No floodlights.”

  He moved without argument.

  Dave straightened slowly, cloth twisting in his hands.

  “If it’s infection,” he said, quieter now, controlled again, “it may incubate differently. Stress response. Immune compromise. We don’t know. We don’t know anything.”

  Edith stepped closer to him, lowering her voice just enough to keep it between them.

  “Then we work with what we do know.”

  He met her eyes.

  “You inspect. Thoroughly. Start with the tent occupants. Then the sleeping cots. Then rotating through perimeter posts. One at a time. No announcement. If anyone shows symptoms, you call me.”

  Dave nodded once. The tremor in his hands had eased.

  “And the body?” he asked.

  Edith looked down at it—at the slack face that no longer carried fever or fear, just the finality of stillness.

  “Head trauma confirmed,” she said. “Then we move her outside the perimeter before dawn. Burn if we have to. Quietly.”

  The conscious man in the tent spoke again, voice thin. “I didn’t feel anything. She didn’t—she didn’t attack me.”

  Edith stepped to the flap and looked at him.

  “You’re going to stay where you are,” she said. “Doctor’s going to check you again. You do not leave this tent without being cleared.”

  He nodded rapidly.

  The unconscious man groaned faintly then—just a low, involuntary sound as his body shifted against the cot. Sweat rolled down his temple. His pulse still fluttered visibly at his throat.

  Alive.

  Outside, the dogs had finally stopped barking, though they remained alert, ears forward, watching the corpse as if expecting it to defy gravity.

  Jack laid back on the cot, staring at the dim curve of canvas above him. The gunshot still echoed somewhere behind his ribs, a phantom percussion that refused to settle. The tent had quieted again—one man breathing shallowly across from him, another murmuring in uneasy sleep—but the quiet no longer felt neutral.

  He closed his eyes.

  The body falling mid-lunge replayed with clinical clarity. The angle of her jaw. The way the IV line had swung once before coming to rest.

  He turned onto his side.

  The dogs barking. The certainty in Edith’s voice. The absence of bite marks.

  He flipped onto his back again.

  Sleep did not return. It hovered somewhere out of reach, refusing to take him.

  After what felt like an hour but might have been twenty minutes, he sat up abruptly. The cot creaked under the shift of weight. He swung his legs down, boots scraping lightly against packed earth.

  Outside, the camp had reorganized itself.

  The body was gone.

  The torn section of the medical tent had been cut clean and retied. Lanterns had been lowered further. Watch posts were manned in disciplined silence, rifles angled outward, faces drawn tighter than before.

  The eastern sky had begun to pale. Not bright yet—just a thinning of black into gray-blue.

  Jack stepped into the open yard.

  The air felt colder now, scrubbed clean by the night. Smoke from the fire hung low and flat, drifting toward the ditch before dissolving.

  Near the front of the medical tent stood the trucker-looking man Jack remembered—broad frame, heavy jacket thrown over one shoulder, jaw rough with overnight stubble. He stood planted, boots wide, voice steady and unhurried. A small knot of people faced him—some alert, some bleary-eyed, all listening.

  Jack drifted closer, unnoticed.

  “We’re not waiting to see if that happens again,” the trucker was saying. His tone wasn’t heated. It was practical. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with. We do know what we saw.”

  A murmur moved through the group.

  “She wasn’t bitten,” someone muttered.

  “Doesn’t matter,” the trucker replied evenly. “That’s the point. Doesn’t matter. We can’t assume it’s only bites anymore.”

  He shifted his weight slightly, scanning faces without raising his volume.

  “New contamination protocol,” he continued. “Effective now. If someone turns—bitten or not—we treat it the same. Immediate neutralization. Immediate removal beyond the perimeter. No one lingers around bodies. No one touches bare skin.”

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  His gaze swept across the yard.

  “We’ve got a few pairs of gloves. Some hunting overalls. Not perfect. It’s what we’ve got. Anyone not on watch, able and—” he paused just long enough for the word to register, “—willing, we’re moving the bodies twenty to thirty feet out past the east ditch. We stack ’em clean. Get ready to burn.”

  A ripple of discomfort passed through the cluster.

  “Burning them?” an older woman asked quietly. “They were people.”

  “They still are,” someone else shot back.

  “And if this is airborne?” another voice cut in. “If burning spreads it?”

  “We don’t know that,” a younger man said, defensive.

  “We don’t know anything,” the older woman replied.

  The argument simmered but never boiled. Exhaustion weighed it down.

  “We can’t just leave them laying where dogs can get at them,” the trucker said, not raising his voice. “We can’t bury them right now. We don’t have tools for that many. Fire’s controlled. Quick. It reduces risk.”

  “Or makes a signal,” someone muttered.

  He nodded once. “Then we do it low. Controlled.”

  There was no rhetoric in him. No speech-making. Just the kind of tone that assumed the work would be done because it had to be.

  A few people stepped back.

  One older man rubbed his temples and shook his head. A woman with a bandaged wrist avoided eye contact and turned toward the fire instead. A younger guy in a hoodie muttered something under his breath and drifted toward the perimeter.

  When the shifting stopped, the circle had thinned.

  Jack stood there without having decided to.

  Two others remained near him: a teenager with rubber boots splattered in dried mud, and a middle-aged woman with a tight jaw and steady eyes.

  The trucker gave a single nod, acknowledging those still present.

  “All right,” he said. “We move clean. We move fast.”

  As he turned to grab a bundle of folded overalls, Jack’s thoughts slipped sideways.

  Burning.

  The image rose without invitation—the piles near town. Bodies stacked without order. Flames leaping too high. Smoke billowing thick and oily against a dark sky.

  The smell.

  He swallowed.

  Before the thought could settle fully, someone stepped into his peripheral vision.

  A young man—maybe early twenties, freckles sharp against pale skin—held out a pair of hunter-green overalls and a set of yellow rubber gloves. The kind meant for scrubbing sinks, not handling the dead.

  He didn’t say much.

  Just extended them toward Jack, eyes flicking once to his face as if measuring whether he would take them.

  The overalls were heavier than they looked.

  The gloves hung limp over the fabric, fingers curled inward like they were already gripping something.

  Jack took the overalls without hesitation.

  The fabric was stiff from storage, smelling faintly of old detergent and gasoline. He stepped into them one leg at a time, boots scuffing against packed earth as he tugged the material up over his hips. They were too large through the waist and hung loose along his torso, but the straps adjusted with a metallic click when he pulled them tighter over his shoulders.

  He didn’t complain about the fit.

  He didn’t comment at all.

  He just reached for the gloves.

  The yellow rubber sagged at the wrists as he worked his fingers into them. The interior was slightly powdered, cool against his skin. He flexed once, testing the grip, feeling the rubber stretch and snap lightly across his knuckles.

  “Well,” he said, voice level but quieter than he intended, “is there a place the bodies were already taken? Where we gotta drag ’em from?”

  The trucker glanced at him briefly, approving without saying it outright.

  “East side,” he replied. “We moved the body already. Rest are still where they dropped last night. Past the second fence post. Along the ditch.”

  He gestured with a thumb over his shoulder.

  “Couple near the bus seam too. We start there. Stack ’em clean. Heads same direction. Keep it orderly.”

  The teenager in boots nodded and stepped off first, rebar hook already in his hand. The woman followed, jaw set.

  Jack finished pulling the gloves tight, rolling the cuff over the edge of the overall sleeve to seal it as best he could.

  As they moved toward the eastern barricade opening, the sky continued to pale. Gray edged into faint rose near the horizon, outlining the vehicles in cold light that made everything look less forgiving. Lanterns dimmed by comparison.

  The camp was awake now in a different way.

  People watched.

  Not openly staring—but aware.

  Dave stood near the medical tent, speaking quietly to someone seated on a crate. Edith had repositioned near the central seam, scanning perimeter shifts.

  The dogs had been tied short now, restless but controlled, eyes tracking movement beyond the barricade.

  Jack stepped over the flattened cardboard strip at the exit seam and out onto the damp road.

  The first body lay half in the ditch, clothes soaked dark from rain. One arm was twisted under the torso. The face had been partially destroyed—crushed at the temple from the previous night’s neutralization.

  The teenager crouched first, sliding the rebar hook through the belt loop of the corpse’s jeans.

  “Don’t grab skin,” he muttered. “Fabric only.”

  Jack nodded once, though no one had been speaking to him directly.

  He bent down and took hold of the jacket sleeve instead, careful not to let his gloves press against exposed flesh. Even through rubber, the proximity felt wrong.

  The body was heavier than he expected.

  Dead weight in the most literal sense.

  They dragged in silence.

  Boot heels cut lines through wet dirt. The corpse’s shoulder bumped once against the edge of the ditch, making a dull, hollow sound that traveled farther than it should have.

  Jack kept his eyes forward.

  The smell rose gradually as they moved farther from the camp’s smoke cover. Not rot—but the sour undertone of blood and soaked fabric warming with the dawn.

  They crossed twenty feet. Then twenty-five.

  The trucker had already begun positioning the first two they’d moved earlier—The women from the medical tent laid flat, another placed beside her with arms folded over the chest.

  “Head this way,” he instructed quietly, adjusting alignment like he was stacking lumber instead of people.

  They set the first body down.

  Jack straightened slowly, breath shallow.

  His eyes lifted, scanning the field beyond the ditch.

  Tree line. Still.

  The dip in the brush where the dogs had come from.

  Empty.

  He looked back toward camp.

  From this distance, it looked smaller. More fragile. Vehicles arranged with intention, yes—but thin. Finite.

  He watched Dave move between tents. Watched Edith redirect someone toward the watch post. Watched Martin adjust his rifle strap and speak low to a guard.

  These people had built something.

  But they had also just watched someone turn without warning.

  Jack looked down at the bodies.

  The teenager nudged another corpse with his boot.

  “Come on,” he said quietly.

  Jack nodded and stepped forward again, gripping the next sleeve.

  The gloves creaked faintly as he tightened his hold.

  The second body was lighter.

  Or maybe Jack’s hands had simply adjusted.

  He dragged by fabric, careful, deliberate. Jacket sleeves. Belt loops. Pant legs. Avoiding skin even through rubber. Each face turned toward him as they rolled and shifted across dirt. Slack mouths. Broken noses. Eyes fixed on nothing.

  He looked at them longer than he meant to.

  There was something about the contact—about the weight and the silence—that began to dull the shock. Each time he reached down, the question rose again.

  Was this a person?

  Was this something else?

  They had been people. That was undeniable. The clothes told that story. The scuffed boots. The wedding ring still clinging to one pale finger. The faded logo on a hoodie. But whatever had animated them last night had not been the person.

  And now they were still.

  Again.

  If that was what this was.

  His mind circled the same points as he dragged the third, then the fourth. Would they wake again? Was this temporary? Was the head trauma final? Did the thing inside them die, or just stop moving?

  The wrongness of touching them should have grown.

  Instead, it thinned.

  Familiarity crept in with repetition. Grip. Drag. Step. Set down. Realign.

  By the time the small pile had formed—six bodies laid shoulder to shoulder along the ditch line—the motions had become procedural.

  The trucker stepped back, hands on hips, surveying the arrangement in the gray morning light.

  “Good,” he said simply. “That’s good work.”

  There was no praise in it. No attempt at encouragement. Just acknowledgment.

  He turned to Jack.

  “Go get a can,” he said.

  Jack nodded before his brain had time to weigh it.

  He walked back toward the camp alone, the overalls brushing loosely against his legs, gloves slick faintly from damp fabric and sweat. The eastern sky had begun to take on a pale orange edge now, outlining the barricade in soft contrast.

  He found Martin near the seam again, rifle slung but within reach, eyes tracking the tree line.

  “Gas,” Jack said quietly.

  Martin’s gaze shifted to him, then past him toward the pile beyond the ditch. His jaw worked once before he spoke.

  “Yeah.”

  He jerked his chin toward a row of red cans stacked near the bus—fuel they had taken the previous day. “Take from that one. We used it at the station. It’s good.”

  His voice had lost its earlier edge of dry humor. It carried something heavier now. Not regret. Not exactly.

  Jack picked up the can. It sloshed slightly as he lifted it, the liquid inside shifting with a dull weight.

  He walked back out.

  The trucker watched him approach, face unreadable in the growing light. The others had stepped a few feet back from the pile, gloves still on, boots muddy. The teenager stared at the bodies without expression. The woman had her arms crossed tight across her chest.

  Jack stopped a few feet from the first corpse.

  The trucker gave him a single nod.

  Not a command.

  Permission.

  Jack stood there half a second too long.

  He had assumed he would hand the can over.

  That someone else would take the next step.

  Instead, the nod remained fixed on him.

  He shifted his grip and twisted the cap loose. The plastic threads rasped softly under his gloved fingers. The smell hit immediately—sharp, chemical, invasive.

  He tilted the can.

  The first splash soaked into a torn jacket and darkened the fabric instantly. It spread along the weave, pooling briefly in the folds before seeping downward into dirt.

  He moved down the line slowly, methodically. Pouring over torsos. Over legs. Avoiding faces at first.

  Then not avoiding them.

  The gasoline ran along jawlines and into open mouths, dripping from chins to earth.

  Something tightened deep in his gut.

  Not fear.

  Not disgust.

  Something closer to dissonance.

  One of those things had nearly torn him open in the street. One had lunged at Dave not an hour ago. One could have been him.

  And yet.

  Dousing them felt wrong in a way he couldn’t articulate.

  As if he were erasing something that might still have meaning.

  He finished the last body and stepped back.

  The pile glistened faintly in the dawn light, fabric dark and wet with fuel. The smell hung heavy and intrusive.

  He lowered the can slowly, hands trembling just enough that he noticed.

  The trucker stepped forward, a small road flare already in his hand. He paused long enough to meet Jack’s eyes again.

  “You did what had to be done,” he said.

  Not comfort.

  Not absolution.

  Just statement.

  Jack stepped aside.

  The flare scraped alive with a hiss, bright red against the muted morning.

  For a brief moment, everything held.

  Then the trucker tossed it onto the soaked fabric.

  Fire took instantly.

  It rolled across the pile in a low whoosh, orange and blue tongues licking upward before settling into a steady burn. The flames stayed lower than Jack expected—contained by damp earth and the careful spacing.

  Smoke rose in a thin column, gray at first, then darker as fabric caught fully.

  The heat reached Jack’s face in a wave.

  He did not step back.

  He watched.

  Watched the edges curl. Watched hands blacken and contract. Watched features distort under heat until they no longer resembled anything that had once been human.

  Behind him, the camp remained standing.

  Ahead of him, the fire consumed what had once tried to consume him.

  The sun broke the horizon fully then, casting the scene in clean morning light that made everything undeniable.

  The fire was still settling into itself when the first engine turned over.

  It wasn’t a subtle sound.

  It tore through the low hiss of burning fabric and the soft murmur of dawn like a blade. One ignition—then another—then a third almost on top of it. Metal rattled. Tires spun against gravel.

  Jack’s head snapped toward the barricade.

  Inside the perimeter, voices rose—not in argument, not in protocol—just raw surprise.

  “What the hell—?”

  “Hey!”

  The screech of tires cut the air as two trucks lurched forward from inside the compound, engines revving far too high for controlled movement. A third followed, reversing hard and slamming into gear.

  People scattered out of their paths.

  One of the buses forming the eastern seam shuddered as a truck squeezed past the gap where a minivan had been angled too loosely. The shopping carts wired between bumpers toppled as someone ripped the cord free in a single violent yank.

  “Stop them!” someone shouted, though there was no plan attached to the command.

  The first truck burst through the narrow exit seam and tore down the road past the ditch, tires spitting mud and ash from the burning pile. The second followed within seconds, fishtailing briefly before correcting and accelerating hard.

  Jack felt the heat of the fire on one side of his face and the cold of open morning on the other.

  The sound of engines faded fast into open road.

  For a second, the only thing left was the crackle of the burning bodies and the stunned silence of those who remained.

  Jack and the others near the ditch began walking back toward the compound without speaking.

  Inside, the camp felt smaller.

  A few vehicles were simply… gone. The empty spaces where they had been left gaps in the barricade that no amount of rope or pallets could immediately replace.

  People were shouting now—not at each other, but at the absence.

  “He took it—he took my fucking truck—”

  “They took the dogs—where’s Scooter?”

  “They just left?”

  The trucker who had lit the flare moved fast toward the center yard, jaw tight, but he didn’t shout. He just started taking stock with his eyes.

  Near the torn seam of the barricade stood the man from the cot—the one who had watched the woman turn. Or rather, where he had been.

  Now only tire tracks remained.

  A younger woman near the fire grabbed Jack’s sleeve as he passed.

  “It was him,” she said, breath shaky. “The guy from the tent. He woke up after the shot and started packing. Said he couldn’t stay. Said he had to get to his daughter. That she was alone. That if people are turning, no one’s safe.”

  Her eyes flicked toward the smoke rising from the ditch.

  “He said we’re sitting ducks.”

  Another voice chimed in behind her. “Couple of them went with him. Said they’d rather take their chances on the road than wait for something to turn in their sleep.”

  “And they took the dogs,” someone else muttered bitterly. “Just unhooked ’em and tossed ’em in the back.”

  Across the yard, Edith stepped forward into the widening gap.

  She didn’t raise her voice.

  She didn’t chase the trucks.

  She climbed onto the tailgate of the nearest remaining vehicle and stood where everyone could see her.

  “Enough,” she said.

  The word carried cleanly through the compound.

  People quieted—not because they were calm, but because they needed something to anchor to.

  “They made a decision,” Edith continued. “That decision is done.”

  Her gaze swept across the missing vehicles, the torn seam, the smoke drifting over the ditch.

  “They are not our priority now.”

  A few faces bristled at that.

  “They took supplies—” someone began.

  “Yes,” she cut in evenly. “They did. They also took noise and headlights and three engines that are going to draw every set of ears within miles.”

  That stilled a few more arguments.

  “If they reach wherever they think they’re going, good,” she said. “If they don’t, we don’t compound it by scattering.”

  She stepped down from the tailgate and pointed toward the damaged barricade.

  “Seal that seam. Now. Use the spare fencing. No gaps larger than a shoulder width.”

  She turned to the trucker. “Inventory what’s left. Fuel. Ammunition. Water. We assume loss and we adjust.”

  Then her eyes moved across the remaining group.

  “No one else leaves without a word. Not because I say so. Because if you run blind, you die blind.”

  The statement wasn’t threatening.

  A murmur passed through the crowd—quieter this time.

  One older man shook his head. “He said he had to save his daughter.”

  Edith met his gaze without flinching.

  “Then I hope he does.”

  No sarcasm. No softness.

  “Hope doesn’t change what we build here.”

  She turned slightly, addressing the group more broadly.

  “What happened in that tent is a variable. We don’t understand it yet. Running doesn’t remove it.”

  Her eyes flicked once toward Jack.

  Just once.

  Then she looked back to the barricade.

  “We lost vehicles,” she said. “We did not lose structure. We did not lose numbers that matter.”

  She pointed toward the ditch where the fire was still burning low.

  “And we finish what we started.”

  The command didn’t need emphasis.

  People moved.

  Not hurried. Not frantic.

  The teenager grabbed rope and began pulling the toppled carts back into position. The woman with the bandaged wrist fetched cinder blocks. The trucker began counting cans and crates under his breath.

  Jack stood in the center of it, the smell of gasoline and smoke still clinging to his gloves.

  The sun climbed higher, indifferent.

  Edith did not linger at the seam once the first repairs were underway.

  She moved with purpose toward her tent—smaller than the medical one, canvas pulled tight, flap secured with a short loop of cord. She ducked inside without ceremony and let the fabric fall close behind her.

  Outside, the camp continued in muted motion. Rope tightened. Boards were repositioned. The fire at the ditch had settled to a darker burn, flames lower now, smoke rising straighter as the air warmed.

  Jack stood near the reassembled carts, hands still faintly smelling of gasoline beneath the rubber. He watched the barricade narrow.

  The tent flap opened again.

  Edith stepped back out.

  Whatever she had done inside—did not show on her face. She crossed the yard and climbed once more onto the tailgate, not dramatically, just high enough to hold attention without shouting.

  “Listen,” she said.

  The word carried.

  Work slowed.

  “We are not prisoners here,” she continued. “This is not a draft. It’s not a conscription. You are here because you chose to be here.”

  Her eyes moved across them, measuring, not pleading.

  “Help is still coming.”

  It was delivered plainly.

  “We’ve picked up signals before. We’ve seen organized movement. There are still functioning nodes—power grids, stations, fuel lines. That means there is structure somewhere.”

  A few murmurs followed that. Not disbelief. Just the instinct to question.

  Edith did not waver.

  “But that doesn’t mean you have to stake your life on this ground if your gut says otherwise.”

  She let that settle.

  “If you have doubts. If you believe your best odds are elsewhere. If you have someone you think you can reach and you can’t sit here another night wondering—this is your window.”

  Silence deepened.

  “No judgment,” she said. “No resentment. You walk out of here with what we can spare and you do it standing upright. No one’s chasing you.”

  A few heads turned toward the road where the trucks had vanished earlier.

  “You’re still people,” Edith said. “You still get to choose.”

  The crowd held.

  Someone near the back shifted uncomfortably. A younger woman rubbed her face with both hands. An older man stared at the ground, jaw working.

  Then one man stepped forward.

  Not dramatically. Just two slow steps.

  “I can’t stay,” he said quietly. “My sister’s in Greece. If she’s still alive, she’ll be at the marina. I have to try.”

  No one laughed.

  Another followed—shoulders narrow, eyes tired. “I don’t trust this. Not after what happened in that tent.”

  Edith nodded once at each.

  “You understand the risk?” she asked.

  They both nodded.

  “You’ll take water. Rations. Two days’ worth minimum.”

  They agreed.

  The crowd held again.

  Edith scanned it.

  “Anyone else?”

  A pause.

  Then Jack stepped forward.

  He did not announce himself.

  He did not explain.

  He simply moved through the small space between bodies and angled toward the road where the others had begun to gather their provisions.

  He didn’t look at Edith.

  He didn’t look at anyone.

  He just walked.

  Edith watched him go without expression.

  The pause stretched longer this time.

  No one else moved.

  “All right,” she said quietly. “That’s your number.”

  She stepped down from the tailgate and moved toward the small group that had formed near the edge of the yard.

  “You’ll take what we can give,” she said. “And before you step outside the perimeter, you report to the doctor. Full check.”

  One of the men bristled faintly. “You don’t trust us?”

  “Just to be sure you're healthy to travel,” she replied evenly. “You’ll want to leave clean.”

  There was no arguing with the tone.

  They moved toward the medical tent.

  Inside, Dave looked up as they entered, already anticipating the task.

  Jack sat back on the edge of a cot without being told. He peeled off the gloves and tugged the overalls loose, stepping out of them carefully. His socks were damp again—sweat this time, not rain.

  “Feet,” Dave said.

  Jack nodded and lifted one boot onto the low crate beside the cot. The laces came undone easier this time.

  When the shoe came off, the skin beneath looked better than it had the night before. Still raw. Still pink along the edges. But less inflamed. The deeper abrasions had begun to seal.

  Dave worked with quiet focus.

  “You rinsed them?” he asked.

  Jack nodded. “Last night.”

  Dave poured antiseptic again, though less of it. The sting was present but not blinding.

  “No swelling,” he murmured. “No heat. Healing.”

  He wrapped fresh gauze with practiced care, snug but not tight. Slipped a clean pair of socks over them.

  “Change these if they get wet,” he said. “You don’t want maceration.”

  Jack gave a faint nod.

  Dave checked his pupils next. Pressed fingers against his neck. Watched his breathing.

  “You’re steady,” he said at last. “Physiologically.”

  The word lingered.

  Jack pulled his shoes back on and stood.

  Outside, a small bundle had been assembled—water bottles, two sealed ration packs, a small flashlight, a half roll of duct tape. Practical. Measured.

  Edith handed it over without ceremony.

  “You get to your destination and you find structure,” she said quietly. “You signal. Radio channel two. We’re listening.”

  Jack didn’t answer.

  He took the pack.

  He stepped toward the seam where the others were waiting.

  Before he reached it, a hand caught his shoulder—not forceful, just firm enough to stop him.

  Martin stood there.

  He didn’t look angry.

  He didn’t look betrayed.

  He looked tired.

  “Jack,” he said quietly.

  The name sat heavier than expected.

  “You sure about this?”

  Not accusation.

  A question that carried weight.

  His eyes flicked once toward the ditch. “You think you’re better off alone?”

  There was no challenge in it. Just directness.

  Martin didn’t release his shoulder immediately.

  Jack felt the weight of his hand there—solid, grounding, familiar in a way that made what he was about to say harder.

  “I just don’t know what to think,” Jack said.

  He tried to hold Martin’s gaze when he said it. Tried to anchor the words in something steady. For a second he managed it—eyes locked, breath controlled.

  Then the smoke drifted across the yard again.

  His focus slipped.

  He looked past Martin, toward the ditch where the last of the flames were chewing through what remained. The column of smoke had thinned, but it still rose—persistent, unavoidable.

  “I just can’t do that,” he said, voice quieter now. “If that’s what it takes. If that’s what making it through… whatever this is—” he gestured vaguely, hand cutting through open air, through barricades and tents and the sky beyond, “—means.”

  His throat tightened.

  The image of pouring gasoline over faces flashed again—features dissolving under flame. The sound of engines leaving. The body from the medical tent dropping mid-lunge.

  His voice cracked before he could smooth it.

  “I can’t.”

  The word broke.

  He swallowed hard, but it didn’t fix it. His eyes burned suddenly and without warning. Tears blurred the edges of the camp, of Martin’s shape in front of him.

  He hadn’t planned to cry.

  He didn’t want to.

  The first tear slipped down anyway.

  He turned his face slightly, as if the act of shifting angle could contain it. His chest hitched once, subtle but visible.

  Martin’s hand loosened.

  He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t argue. He didn’t try to reframe it into strength or cowardice.

  For a moment, he just looked at Jack.

  “You think I like it?” Martin asked quietly.

  It wasn’t a challenge.

  “I’ve got two kids,” he continued, voice steady but lower now. “They’re gone. Or they’re out there. I don’t know which. Every time I pull a trigger, I wonder if I’m doing it to someone else’s kid.”

  He let that hang between them.

  “But if I don’t,” he said, “then this”—he nodded toward the camp, toward the people tightening rope and inventorying cans—“doesn’t get a chance.”

  Jack couldn’t look back at him.

  He wiped at his face with the back of his hand, quick and embarrassed. He could feel the roughness of his own skin.

  “I just can’t,” he repeated, softer.

  Martin exhaled slowly.

  “All right,” he said.

  No anger. No dismissal.

  “Then don’t.”

  He stepped back, creating space.

  “But don’t pretend there’s a version of this where you don’t have to make a call,” he added. “Road’s not clean either.”

  Jack nodded faintly, though he didn’t fully process the words.

  He adjusted the strap of the small supply pack over his shoulder and started walking toward the seam.

  The others who had chosen to leave were already standing there—silent, uncertain, packs slung.

  The gap in the barricade felt narrower now.

  As Jack stepped through it, he didn’t look back again.

  Ahead, the road stretched open under the sun.