Page 63 of What Remains

"You ready?" Seth asked.

Josie looked out across the pristine white landscape, her gaze drifting toward the road leading west. "I just need to know."

Somewhere beyond the snow, beyond Denver, beyond everything they'd already survived, home waited for her. Or perhaps the truth did. She'd spent years learning to calculate risk, yet she still couldn't assign odds to either outcome.

“Lets roll,” Jay's voice crackled over the radio.

The SUVs eased out of the fire station and onto the snow-covered street, their tires cutting the first tracks through the untouched white. The old station shrank behind them until it vanished into the distance.

Ahead, the road was a blank white page disappearing into the trees. Josie watched the first tire-track appear in the snow, and a deep terror seized her—the terror of the story that was about to be written.

Chapter 13

Bleed, Scavenge, Survive

The day bled away in a rhythm of risk and reward—siphoning gas while one stood guard, scavenging quickly before moving on. The memory of armed men in the trees had sharpened their routine into a silent, brutally efficient language. They scanned every tree , checked every rooftop, and treated every abandoned car as a potential ambush. It was a new kind of normalcy, and it was exhausting.

The infected weren't the only predators anymore.

By late afternoon, the snowfall eased to nothing, leaving a crisp blue sky that carried no warmth. The highways glittered under fresh snow, and the low early spring sun stretched long shadows across the empty landscape.

Inside Beast, Layla eventually drifted off, head against the window, a stuffed rabbit tucked beneath her chin like a small promise against the cold. Josie folded the map tighter across her lap, tracing the route with a fingertip that didn't quite steady when she reached the next decision point.

"We're making good time," she said.

Seth glanced over from the wheel. "Think so?"

Josie nodded once, confident in the math even if certainty had become rare. "If the roads keep up like this... we should reach my parents' place sometime tomorrow."

Seth nodded too, leaving the rest unsaid. Tomorrow carried hope, but it also carried the kind of possibility that could turn hope into heartbreak in a single moment. He noticed his hands were already moving—folding the map, capping the pen—and hers were too, busy with small, unbidden tasks.

The sun stretched lower as the convoy rolled on, and Jay's voice crackled over the radio with a warning edge.

"We're going to need to start looking for somewhere to bed down."

Seth reached for the handset. "Copy."

He glanced upward at the fading light and did the quiet calculation everyone shared without naming it. Maybe another hour—maybe. Once darkness settled over the snow-covered roads, driving meant giving whoever—or whatever—wanted them a clearer target.

A few minutes later, the radio snapped again.

"Got something up ahead."

Seth leaned forward. "What is it?"

Jay's tone tightened with cautious interest. "Looks like a farm supply place. Maybe equipment sales."

There was a pause, then Jay's voice returned, laced with weary pragmatism. "Honestly... probably the best we're gonna get tonight."

Seth spotted it moments after: a faded green sign leaning crookedly beside the highway.

HENDERSON FARM & FEED

The front windows had been shattered long ago. Rusting tractors and combines crouched beside the building, half-buried beneath snowdrifts, their paint faded and peeling like old skin. The whole place looked abandoned—exactly what they wanted when survival demanded invisibility.

Jay guided the SUVs off the highway, and both vehicles bounced over cracked gravel toward the property. Cara's voice came over the radio, brisk as she checked angles and exits.

"Big pole barn behind the main building."