The morning was cold, the kind of cold that bit through jackets and stiffened fingers. Mist clung low over the cul-de-sac, softening the edges of the ruined houses and the broken pavement. Michael walked at the front, rifle slung but ready, Sarah trailing just close enough to touch his sleeve when nerves got the better of her. Lena kept her distance, quiet, pale. Mark brought up the rear, his eyes haunted but sharp.
They were heading toward a corner store a few blocks down. Supplies were running low again. The little stockpile they'd made was shrinking fast with mouths to feed, and Michael had insisted they move before hunger made them sloppy.
"Keep your eyes open," he said, voice even, carrying that old command tone. "Runners can come out of nowhere. Don't talk unless you have to."
Sarah nodded, clutching the pipe Michael had given her days ago. She held it tight, the knuckles of her small hands bone-white. He noticed, but said nothing. Pressure forged steel. She'd learn.
The streets were still, eerily so. Windows shattered. Cars burned out. A dog's corpse lay stiff in the gutter, ribs poking through. Sarah glanced once, then looked away, jaw tight. Michael felt a small flicker of pride. She was adapting faster than most grown men had during his years of service.
They had just crossed into the cracked parking lot of the store when it happened.
The explosion.
It wasn't near, but it was massive a deep, shuddering roar that rolled across the city like thunder. Fire belched into the sky miles away, a column of smoke climbing fast. The ground trembled under their feet. Sarah stumbled, nearly falling. Mark grabbed her arm, steadying her, eyes wide.
"What the hell was that?" Lena gasped.
Michael's instincts screamed. He already knew. "Army munitions. Had to be. Probably a tank or depot went up." He paused, scanning rooftops, alleys, anywhere movement could come from. Then he swore under his breath.
Because he could already hear it.
The chorus.
A wave of shrieks, guttural and hungry, answering the sound. From the distance at first, faint then closer, louder, multiplying as the explosion pulled every infected for miles into a frenzy.
"They'll be swarming that blast site," Michael said quickly. His voice was sharp, decisive. "But they'll sweep outward too. We're too close. We move now."
Mark's face twisted with panic. "But the food"
"Forget the food," Michael snapped. "You want to end up chewed apart in a parking lot? Move!"
That was enough. They ran. Boots pounded against the cracked asphalt. Sarah struggled to keep up, but Michael pushed her along, steady, not letting her fall behind. Lena's breath came ragged, scared, but she held. Mark ran in silence, jaw clenched, grief and fear driving him in equal measure.
They didn't stop until the cul-de-sac came back into view. But as soon as they stepped into it, Michael knew something was wrong. The smell hit him first iron and rot. Then the silence. Not the quiet of safety, but the heavy, suffocating quiet that follows violence.
He raised a fist, the old signal to halt, and crouched low. The others froze. Sarah's chest heaved, eyes wide, following his every move.
They edged forward together.
The sight waiting for them made Lena gag and fall back against a fence. Sarah covered her mouth with her sleeve, eyes watering.
The houses they had camped in were torn open, doors ripped from hinges. Blood painted the pavement. And inside the yard where the children had been playing just yesterday, there were bodies. Torn apart. Some small. Some so mangled you couldn't tell what they had been.
The infected had beaten them there.
Michael felt the weight sink into his chest. His grip on the rifle tightened until his knuckles popped. He'd seen massacres before in deserts, in alleys overseas but this was different. These weren't soldiers. These were neighbors. Families who thought they'd bought a few days of safety.
Sarah's voice came, trembling, breaking. "The kids… they were just here…"
"Don't look," Michael said firmly, stepping in front of her. "Keep your eyes on me. Just me. You hear?"
Tears burned her cheeks, but she nodded.
Mark didn't move. He stood frozen, staring into the blood-soaked cul-de-sac. His hands trembled at his sides. His lips moved soundlessly before words finally came out, ragged and broken.
"My family was in there," he whispered. His voice cracked like glass. "My wife. My kids. They" He staggered forward a step, then another, as if he could somehow put them back together with his bare hands.
Michael caught his arm, pulling him back hard. "Don't. They're gone, Mark. We can't change that."
Mark wrenched free, eyes blazing. "Gone? That's all you've got? They were everything! And now what? You expect me to keep running while their blood's still warm on the street?"
Michael held his ground, voice low but sharp. "I expect you to survive. Because that's the only way any of this means something."
But Mark wasn't listening. His grief had swallowed him whole. His face twisted, raw, broken. He dropped to his knees, staring at the broken door of the house where his family had been.
"They were just here…" His voice grew faint, almost childlike. "Last night I kissed them goodnight. This morning, they're meat. Just meat on the ground."
Lena wept into her sleeve. Sarah clung to Michael's arm, shaking.
Michael crouched low, steadying his voice with every ounce of command he still had left. "Listen to me. I know it feels like the ground's gone under you. I know it feels like there's nothing left. But you're not dead. Not yet. You can still fight. That's what they'd want."
Mark's eyes met his wild, hollow, drowning. And then his hand went to his belt. Not for food. Not for a knife. For his pistol.
Michael lunged, voice snapping. "Mark don't!"
But Mark was already raising it, pressing the barrel under his chin, shoulders trembling.
"I can't walk this road alone," he whispered. "Better I end it here. With them."
"Mark!" Michael's voice cracked sharp, desperate now. "Don't throw it away. Don't"
The gunshot split the morning.
Sarah screamed. Lena's sobs turned to gasps, hands covering her face.
Mark's body slumped sideways into the dirt, eyes still open, empty.
Michael froze, chest heavy, the ringing in his ears swallowing everything. Another man gone. Another one he couldn't save.
Slowly, he turned, pulling Sarah into his chest before she could see more. His voice was steady again, cold and commanding, because it had to be. "Don't look back. Not now. Not ever."
The cul-de-sac was finished. The fragile truce was broken.
And Michael knew, as he tightened his grip on Sarah and scanned the horizon, that the world wasn't going to stop testing them.
Not now. Not ever.