Not again.
Never again.
He'd already watched her die once in that other timeline, that other version of today. He'd held her broken body in his arms, felt her blood on his hands, heard her final breath rattle in her chest.
He would not—could not—let that happen again.
Even if it meant wading through an ocean of corpses to reach her.
Ethan shook himself, forcing his mind back to the present. Emotions were a luxury he couldn't afford right now. He needed to think tactically, to plan, to survive.
His eyes swept the sporting goods store with renewed purpose.
If he was going to cross three miles of hell to reach O'Hare, he needed to be prepared.
He grabbed a tactical backpack from the shelves—one of those military-style ones with MOLLE webbing and multiple compartments. It was dusty but intact. He strapped it onto his shoulders, adjusting the straps until it sat securely against his back.
Then he began scavenging the store systematically for survival gear, moving quickly but methodically through the aisles.
A hunting knife caught his eye—displayed in a locked glass case that he smashed open with the shovel. The knife looked like a knockoff Strider D9, probably manufactured in China and sold at a markup to people who wanted to feel like survivalists. But when he pulled it from its sheath, the blade gleamed wickedly under the flickering fluorescent lights. He tested it against a display rope, and it sliced through the thick cord cleanly, barely requiring any pressure.
Good enough, he thought, strapping the sheath to his belt.
Next, he grabbed every energy bar and protein bar he could find from the camping food section—chocolate, peanut butter, mixed berry, it didn't matter. He stuffed them into the backpack's side compartments. Added several bottles of water—the good kind, not the cheap plastic that would crack under pressure. Found a box of compressed emergency rations—those dense, calorie-packed blocks that tasted like cardboard but could keep you alive for weeks.
A pair of cut-resistant gloves went on his hands—the kind meant for processing game, with reinforced palms and knuckles. They fit surprisingly well.
A durable hiking jacket came off a mannequin—water-resistant, with lots of pockets. Despite the summer heat outside, he knew he might need it. Zombies meant blood spray. Blood spray meant potential infection. Any barrier between his skin and their fluids was worth the discomfort.
He pulled the jacket on, zipping it halfway.
Testing the knife one more time, Ethan held it up to the light. The blade gleamed with a cold, professional edge, reflecting his face in its surface. He could see his own eyes staring back—dark, determined, slightly wild.
This will do.
Pulling out his phone, he tried Emily's number again. His thumb pressed the call button, and he held the device to his ear with desperate hope.
Ring…
Ring…
"Your call cannot be completed as dialed."
"Damn it!" Ethan hissed, resisting the urge to throw the phone across the store.
Still no signal.
The network was busy—everyone in Chicago trying to reach their loved ones, emergency services overwhelmed, the entire cellular infrastructure buckling under the weight of millions of simultaneous calls.
But it was too soon for total collapse. The towers should still be operational. Power should still be running.
Something's jamming it, he thought uneasily, staring at the "no service" indicator on his screen. Or the volume is just that insane.
Either way, it didn't matter.
He couldn't reach her by phone.
He would have to reach her in person.
No matter what, he had to get to O'Hare.
Ethan checked his mental map of Chicago. O'Hare International Airport was roughly three miles northwest from his current position—usually a fifteen-minute drive on the highway, maybe twenty with traffic.
But with the city falling apart, with crashed cars blocking roads and zombies everywhere, with fires and chaos turning the streets into a war zone…
It might as well be a journey through hell itself.
Three miles, Ethan thought grimly. I can do three miles.
A soft, wet sound drew his attention, pulling him from his thoughts.
Ethan turned slowly, his hand instinctively tightening on the shovel's handle.
What he saw made his chest tighten.
The child—the small boy the female zombie had attacked earlier, the one whose body had been partially devoured—was crawling weakly across the floor. His tiny neck was half gone, torn flesh hanging in ribbons, exposing bone and cartilage underneath. Blood pooled beneath him as he dragged himself forward, leaving a dark trail on the linoleum.
Yet he still moved.
Still lived, after a fashion.
His eyes had clouded over, the whites turning milky and dead. And in the center of each pupil, a faint red glow flickered like dying embers.
The boy's mouth opened and closed mechanically. A low, rattling moan escaped his small throat.
He was turning.
Right before Ethan's eyes, the child was becoming one of them.
"Damn it…" Ethan whispered, his voice rough with emotion he didn't want to acknowledge.
This was a kid.
Maybe six years old, maybe seven.
Someone's son.
Someone who'd probably woken up this morning excited for the weekend, looking forward to whatever plans his family had. Maybe they'd been heading to the zoo. Maybe to visit grandparents. Maybe just going shopping.
And now…
Now he was this.
Ethan didn't hesitate.
Hesitation would only make it harder.
He raised the shovel, his face hardening into a mask of grim determination.
One swift strike.
THUD!
The blade came down cleanly, precisely, ending it quickly.
The boy stopped moving immediately, his small body going limp. The red glow faded from his eyes, leaving only empty darkness behind.
Ethan stood there for a long second, staring down at what he'd just done. His jaw was tight, his knuckles white on the shovel's handle.
After a moment, he whispered, "Sorry, kid."
Because what else could he say?
What else was there?
You deserved better than this. You deserved to grow up, to have a life, to…
He cut off that line of thinking viciously.
No. Don't do that. Don't make them human in your mind. They're already gone. All you're doing is putting down what's left.
Ethan turned away, forcing himself to compartmentalize, to lock those feelings in a box deep inside where they couldn't interfere with survival.
He finished looting the store, grabbing a few more essentials—a small first aid kit, some rope, a flashlight with extra batteries. He checked outside through the broken front window, scanning the street carefully.
The area was eerily quiet—too quiet.
That unnatural silence that comes when something terrible has just happened and the world is holding its breath.
The few zombies nearby were staggering after other survivors—living humans who screamed and ran and drew their attention away from Ethan's position. He could see a woman in a business suit running down the sidewalk, three zombies shambling after her. Further down, a man was barricading himself in a pharmacy, pushing shelving units against the door.
Everywhere, chaos.
Everywhere, death.
Fires burned in the distance, sending columns of black smoke into the clear summer sky. Car alarms blared their pointless warnings into the air, mixing with the sound of distant screaming. Sirens wailed and died out as emergency vehicles crashed or were abandoned, their crews either dead or fleeing.
The city that had once been full of noise and life—the constant hum of traffic, the chatter of millions of people, the soundtrack of urban civilization—now sounded like a nightmare breathing.
A dying beast, gasping its last breaths.
Ethan slipped out from behind a crashed SUV that had mounted the sidewalk, using it as cover while he got his bearings. He looked down the highway toward the northwest, where he could just barely make out the faint silhouette of the airport control tower in the distance.
A beacon.
A destination.
His only purpose.
"Three miles," he said under his breath, gripping the shovel tighter. His eyes narrowed with determination. "Hang on, Emily."
I'm coming. Just stay alive. Please, please stay alive.
As he started running, keeping low and moving from cover to cover, the wind carried sounds that made his skin crawl.
The low moans of the dead behind him—dozens of them, maybe hundreds, all searching blindly for living flesh.
And somewhere in the distance, the faint rumble of explosions as something downtown detonated—gas mains, maybe, or a vehicle collision at a fuel station.
The ground trembled slightly beneath his feet.
The world was ending.
Civilization was collapsing in real-time, unraveling like a sweater with a pulled thread.
But Ethan Miller had already decided.
He would kill every monster in Chicago if that's what it took to find his sister.
He would wade through rivers of blood.
He would crush a thousand skulls.
He would become a monster himself if necessary.
Nothing else mattered.
Emily, I'm coming. Wait for me.
And with that single thought burning in his mind like a guiding star, Ethan broke into a run, heading northwest toward O'Hare International Airport, toward his sister, toward the only thing in this dying world that still mattered.
Three miles had never seemed so impossibly far.