Pain flared—white and blinding—but the metal shrieked.
I pulled again.
The chain snapped.
Thank fuck, I was free.
By the time I turned back, the infected officer was still struggling to orient himself. His head was twitching, and his mouth opened and closed as if tasting the air.
I didn’t stay long enough to see anything else.
I sprinted back to my truck, yanked open the driver’s door, and got in.
The engine was still running, and the door I’d escaped through was open… I didn’t give a shit.
I drove until the hospital was nothing but a smear in the mirrors—not stopping for anyone or anything.
Only then did I register the damage.
My wrists burned where the cuffs had bitten deep, skin torn and swelling fast. Blood slicked the steering wheel in uneven streaks. I wiped my hands on my jeans and kept going.
Pain was easy to ignore, but my concern for Taryn was harder to dismiss.
The road deteriorated the farther I pushed—debris scattered across the lanes, abandoned cars angled wrong, doors hanging open as people milled between them with no clear direction. A man leaned against the hood of a sedan, clutching his side as another tried to keep pressure on the wound. An ambulance sat crooked in the median, hazard lights flashing, its driver bent over a woman on the asphalt. He was too pale, sweating through his uniform, his movements slow and uncertain. A minivan waited nearby with its hazards still blinking, a toddler’s car seat hanging out the open side door as if forgotten in a hurry.
A man tried to flag me down, but I kept going. Most of these people were beyond help.
Minutes later, I passed a gas station. Something about it raised red flags, but my fuel gauge was nearly empty.
There were too many cars and too few people milling around. A group of bodies gathered around the pumps, voices rising—not quite shouting, but close. It was the kind of shit you hear before chaos erupts.
I slowed because I desperately needed to fill up.
That’s when I heard the screams.
A man staggered backward from the convenience store doors, clutching his forearm. Blood ran freely between his fingers, splattering onto the concrete. He tripped over the curb and went down hard.
The woman who followed him didn’t slow.
She dropped onto him at a startling speed, her mouth open, teeth sinking into his stomach like she was biting into fruit. He howled, legs kicking uselessly as she tore away flesh.
Someone fired a gun—wild and uncontrolled. The shot shattered a window instead of stopping anything. The woman didn’t even flinch.
I pressed the gas and sped up.
A few feet farther down, I saw them.
Five people stood near the side of the road. Standing completely still and silent. Their eyes were milky, and their clothes were torn. One woman even looked like her leg was broken. Not a single one of them had a trace of humanity left in their face.
As my car passed, their heads turned.
Not one at a time, but together.
Five chins lifted in perfect unison. Five sets of clouded eyes tracked the movement of my car as it rolled by.
My grip on the steering wheel tightened.
I accelerated. I’d have to get gas somewhere else. If I came across more abandoned vehicles, I might be able to siphon some.
