The sound didn't register as glass at first. The door rattled once.
The vibration traveled through the metal and into the floor, a dull shudder that made dust rain from the ceiling in thin, drifting threads. Somewhere deeper in the store, something small toppled over—a can rolling lazily until it hit a shelf and stopped. No one breathed.
Then again.
Something heavy scraped along the metal, nails or bone or teeth—no one could tell which anymore—and the sound slithered through the room like a living thing. The five newcomers huddled tighter, breath tearing in and out of them, hands clamped over mouths as if silence could make them invisible.
One of them pressed his forehead into his knees, rocking faintly, whispering something that might have been a name. Another woman clutched her own hair, fingers tangled and white-knuckled, eyes blown wide with terror as she stared at the door like it was a mouth deciding whether to bite.
Justin didn't move.
He stood with his back to the door, shoulder braced against it, listening. Counting. Measuring the rhythm of the moans outside the way he'd learned to measure threat in other lives, other places. The dead weren't smart. They didn't plan. They followed sound. Followed heat. Followed the idea of food.
They tested. They lingered. They lost interest.
Sometimes.
Sweat trickled down Justin's spine, slow and cold. He didn't wipe it away. Any movement felt like too much.
The noise thinned.
Not gone.
Just drifting.
A footstep faded. A moan pulled farther away. Something bumped into a parked car outside, metal groaning softly in protest.
He lifted a hand, two fingers raised. Wait.
Kenzie mirrored him without thinking, Barbie tucked tight against her chest, the dog's tiny heartbeat a frantic bird under her palm. She could feel the tremor in her own arms now, the delayed shock catching up. She pressed her jaw shut until it ached.
Her legs felt hollow, like if she shifted her weight wrong she'd collapse straight through them. She focused on the warmth of Barbie, on the fact that the dog was alive, breathing, here.
Mari hadn't stopped staring at Tally.
Not with anger anymore.
With something colder.
The kind of look you give a cracked bridge you're not sure will hold your weight.
"You don't get it," Mari said quietly, voice shaking despite the effort to keep it down. "You don't get that you don't get to decide for everyone."
Her hands curled into fists at her sides, nails biting into her palms. She didn't trust herself to raise her voice. Didn't trust what might come out if she did.
Tally laughed—a short, sharp sound that didn't reach her eyes. "I saved them."
"You endangered all of us," Mari shot back. "Again."
Again hung in the air like an accusation that didn't need explaining.
Tally stepped forward like she wanted the argument physical. "You want to talk about danger? You were ready to let five people die out there."
"Yes," Mari said, without hesitation. "If it meant the rest of us lived."
The honesty of it seemed to knock the air out of the room.
It wasn't cruel. It wasn't dramatic.
It was math.
One of the women who'd been rescued sobbed harder. A man clutched his arm, blood soaking his sleeve, eyes darting to the back door as if expecting it to burst inward at any second.
Another man whispered, "I thought—" and then broke off, swallowing the rest of it like it hurt too much to say aloud.
Justin turned.
"Enough," he said. Not loud. Worse than loud. Final.
The word landed heavy, flattening the room.
Mari bit down on whatever else she wanted to say. Tally crossed her arms, chin lifted in defiance, daring someone to challenge her.
Kenzie watched them both.
She'd seen this dynamic before—girls like Tally sucking the oxygen out of every room, forcing everyone else to orbit their chaos. She'd survived bullies who smiled while they ruined you. She'd learned when to stay small.
But this wasn't high school.
This was life or death.
And Barbie shifted against her ribs, a soft whine pressing through the fabric like a reminder.
Kenzie stepped forward.
"We need to move them," she said quietly, nodding at the five. "Before the noise comes back."
Her voice didn't shake. That surprised her.
Tally scoffed. "Wow. You finally talking now?"
Kenzie ignored her.
Justin met Kenzie's eyes and nodded once. "Stockroom. Interior. No lights."
He looked at the five. "Can you walk?"
They nodded, frantic, grateful, terrified.
As they moved, the store felt different.
Smaller.
Every shelf a hiding place. Every shadow a threat. The air thick with sweat and blood and the coppery tang of fear that never quite left once it settled in.
Their footsteps sounded too loud no matter how carefully they placed them. Fabric brushed metal. Someone sniffed. Someone stifled a sob with the heel of their hand.
They passed the front window.
Tally didn't look out.
She knew what she'd see.
The parking lot was chaos—dark shapes moving through smoke, bodies on the ground that hadn't been there earlier, or maybe had and she just hadn't noticed. She told herself she'd done the right thing. Told herself that anyone who disagreed just didn't have the guts to act.
But something gnawed at her chest anyway.
A crack she couldn't shout over.
In the stockroom, Justin crouched, pressing his ear to the wall. The moans drifted past, unfocused now, pulled away by distant screams and crashing metal.
The dead moved on.
For now.
The five collapsed against shelves, crying openly now that the danger had ebbed just enough to let it in. One of the women whispered prayers. One of the men shook so hard his teeth chattered.
Mari sank down against a crate, scrubbing her face with shaking hands.
She didn't look at Tally.
She didn't trust herself to.
Justin stood in the center of them all, breathing hard, eyes scanning, already planning the next ten minutes because anything further felt impossible.
"We stay quiet," he said. "No lights. No arguing. We wait."
Tally opened her mouth.
Kenzie beat her to it.
"If you do that again," Kenzie said, voice low but steady, "you'll get someone killed. Maybe Barbie. Maybe Justin. Maybe yourself."
The words weren't angry.
They were precise.
Tally stared at her, stunned.
Kenzie met her gaze and didn't look away.
For the first time since the world broke, Tally didn't have a comeback.
Outside, something screamed.
Then stopped.
The silence pressed in, heavy and watchful.
And in that quiet, every single person in the store understood the same thing at once:
The sound Tally had made didn't just draw the dead.
It drew a line.
And none of them knew yet what it was going to cost.