The First Run
Morning was cold enough to bite. Everyone moved slow and quiet, not out of fear, just because that's how tired people move. They loaded the two trucks, checked masks, checked the new fence sections, and held the gate while the outriders rolled their bikes to the front. No speeches. Alice counted crates with her beat-up notebook. "Flour, wire, candles, stitches," she said, tapping each box. "Two minutes on the horn if you get stuck in a tunnel. After that I'm wasting fuel to come pull you. Please don't make me." Kyle patted the garbage truck's new plow like it was a stubborn dog. "She'll shove, not scoop. If the wheel pulls, don't fight it. Nudge it back." Tommy pointed out the hand signs for the riders one more time—big, easy to see. "One wave means clear. Two chops means stop. Palm flat means quiet." Michael looked down the line, met every set of eyes, and said the only thing that felt honest. "Go slow. Come back."
They left the dam and slid into the first fenced tunnel, steel and chain-link stitched to posts with a narrow roof to knock down bottles and branches. Halfway through, the little chime they'd hung at the upwind end rattled hard. "Masks," Michael said, lifting his own. At the far gate a man-shaped infected leaned on the mesh, chest heaving. Dust smudged the wire each time it breathed out and drifted back in. Kyle warmed the side gate's hinge with a tiny torch and swung it open. The truck nosed around the thing, barely touching it with the plow. It folded and split. The cloud drifted; they counted slow and kept moving.
At Sparrow the small bridge they'd named so they could talk about it without pointing a narrow covered walkway ran beside the road for people on foot. A woman and a kid flattened in there while the truck rumbled by, the kid giving a quick, shy salute. Sarah, riding in the pickup, saluted back before she could stop herself. Mid-valley the first outpost was awake, stove ticking, a bucket of spare filters sealed under the bench, a rack of dry socks that felt like treasure. The sentry poured hot water into cups, never lifting her mask. "Wolves were close last night," she said, watching the trees. Tommy nodded and didn't make it bigger than it needed to be.
The rock cut was tight, so they'd fenced it yesterday. The plow hit a tarp hidden under fresh snow wire and shopping carts meant to snag and the truck jolted, growled, then pushed through like it should. A single shot cracked from the pines. Sparks jumped off the armor. The far tower answered with two steady shots. Branches shook and went still. Michael waved them on and said, "We'll pack fill under the plow line later."
On the ridge the air turned strange. A fine dust began to silver the pickup's glass. The riders rolled back with two quick chops stop—and pointed to a shallow dip in the ground. Swollen bodies rocked there, too fat and too still. Every so often one sagged and opened. The air shimmered over them like heat you couldn't see. "Sound lure," Michael said. The outpost behind them tugged a wire and a car horn blurted somewhere else. The bodies leaned toward the noise like plants to sun. One burst, then another. The dust slid downwind, away from the road, and everyone breathed through cloth and patience until the count was done.
The tight S-curve was the one they'd overbuilt on purpose extra mesh and a center rib along the roof. It earned it. Something dropped from the slope and hit the mesh with a slap, then clawed at the grid. Another shape thumped beside it. The rifle in the truck bed barked once; the lighter shape went limp. The heavy one coughed, gray dust showing in the thin lines of light. "Back a little," Michael said, palm rolling. The truck eased in reverse until the wind pulled the air the right way. A flare popped from the outside tower, dragging any other eyes uphill. The heavy body slid, thumped the fence, and burst. No one said what it sounded like.
By afternoon Jackson's wall showed pale through the trees. No cheering at the gate, just shoulders getting lower. Alice and Maria's runner traded numbers fast beans out, candles out, wire out; jars, nails, salt meat in. A guard handed Michael a folded map and tapped a pencilled oval. "This meadow floods, then freezes. Carts fall through. You'll hear it groan before it takes you." They shared quick news wolves on the east ridge, a man missing two days, a kid's cough that everyone wanted to call winter. They turned around before the light turned on them. Engines sleep at home if you can help it.
Trouble waited on the way back. First came people the rust-brown pickup edging toward the mouth of a fenced tunnel like it belonged there. Three in the bed, one at the wheel. No headlights. No horn. Kyle angled the plow and pushed the nose into their path. The raider tried to slip past, hit rib and mesh, and fishtailed. A man reached for the fence and found wire. Another lifted a pistol. Tommy fired once. The truck tore away, scraping the guardrail, and didn't come back. No one called it a win. Michael just said, "We build that drop bar tonight."
They were rolling again when the bells started ringing at the next outpost no lazy clink, just hard, scared metal. The thing that came out of the spruce looked like a truck made of meat. A bear, once. Bigger now by bloat and bone, gray plates of fungus grown over skull and shoulders like armor. Each breath made a wet whistle. Dust puffed out of its mouth. It ran straight at the fence.
The wall bowed. Posts screamed. The roof flexed. It hit again, head first, like it could argue with steel. "Masks on back up!" Michael shouted. Tommy climbed the nearer tower and kept his voice calm because someone had to. "Eyes, mouth, under the front legs soft parts only." Bullets sparked off the plates and did nothing. When a round found red, the bear jerked and roared and kept coming.
Kyle slid into the cab. "You want me on it?"
"Pin the head," Michael said. "Use the side gate."
Kyle drove the plow through the little service gate they'd oiled that morning and turned the truck until the steel teeth caught the bear's jaw against the mesh. For a breath nothing moved except noise. Then the animal slid, claws tearing trenches, and the truck held it there, engine howling. Alice shouldered the flamethrower they'd built from a propane tank. Her hands shook once, then steadied. The first wash of fire rolled off the plate. She adjusted and pushed the flame into the corner of its mouth. The bear screamed. The mounted gun rattled three short bursts into the burned spot. The sound wasn't pretty; it didn't need to be. The bear slumped and coughed.
The plates along its back split with a wet crack and threw a sheet of dust into the air.
"Back!" Michael yelled. "Masks tight!"
They stumbled two steps and held. Wind was with them. The cloud slid away down the road and thinned. The bear tried one more time to breathe and couldn't. Alice gave it one last second of fire into the throat. Tommy ended it with a clean shot through the eye.
After that, nobody talked. They burned the body where it fell diesel and rags, careful shovels to keep the flames inside the fence. The stink climbed through the masks anyway. When the plates curled and the dust drifted off on the wind, they rolled the trucks again, slow and careful, and checked every bolt they passed with their eyes.
They reached the dam at last light. People waited in the yard, not clapping just counting faces. Alice ticked her boxes. Kyle slid under the truck, slid back out, and let out one dry laugh. "Plow teeth held," he said. "Posts didn't like it." Around the fire the talk stayed simple. "First tunnel breather chime helped." "Rock cut wire trap fill under the blade." "Low swale bursters horn works filters clog fast." "Raiders tested a gate plow turned them build drop bar now." And then the part that changed the rules. "Bear. Big. Plates on skull and shoulders. Spore cough. Fire and short bursts into the mouth worked. Cross-brace the posts. Double the bolts on the roof. Stage flares upwind at every outpost. And stop saying animals won't come near the fence."
No one argued. They wrote it down in big letters you could read even with shaking hands.
Before sleep, Michael walked the first tunnel alone, glove on the wire, listening to the steel hum in the wind. From the ridge, the valley looked like a string of small fires with dark lines stitched between. Jackson on one end. The dam on the other. People moving in the middle like blood finding its way. They weren't safe. But the road held after the worst thing in the trees threw itself at it, and that was enough to run it again tomorrow.