Page 95 of What Remains

The wind picked up, rattling the old flagpole behind them. Cade turned slowly farther south.

"Hardware store..." He frowned. "Hm."

"What?" Seth asked.

Cade handed over the binoculars without a word.

Seth looked through them. The front entrance matched exactly what he'd expected—shopping carts scattered across the lot, glass doors shattered, one side of the building blackened by an old fire.

"I don't⁠—"

"Keep looking." Cade pointed. "Around back."

Seth shifted toward the loading docks. There. One section of chain-link fencing hung crooked, its gate standing half open. Snow covered most of the pavement, and months of wind had erased any distinct tracks—but he saw it. A stack of wooden pallets had been positioned just inside the half-open gate, creating a narrow, defensible channel to the loading bay.

"The employees."

Cade nodded. "They would've locked the front and loaded out the back."

Seth studied the building another moment. "The receiving doors. They're closed."

"Which means?" Seth asked.

"If nobody forced their way in..." Cade looked back toward the town. "...there's a decent chance the warehouse was never touched."

Jay folded his arms. "So we don't go through the front."

"We never were." Seth answered.

A small smile crossed Cade's face. “Im starting to like you."

Cara wandered closer to the edge of the roof. "What else are you looking for?"

"Smoke. Movement. Fresh tire tracks." Cade kept scanning as he spoke. "Anything that tells us we're not alone."

As if summoned by the words, he froze. The binoculars stopped moving.

"What?"

He ignored the question, adjusting the focus with slow, careful precision. "There." He pointed toward the western edge of town. "Top floor."

Seth took the binoculars. A brick office building overlooked the entire commercial district. At first, nothing. Then—a sharp, contained glint of light from a top-floor window. It wasn't a random reflection; it was a single, precise flash, gone as quickly as it appeared.

"You think that's a window?" Jay asked.

Seth lowered the binoculars. "No." He looked at Cade. "You don't either."

Cade shook his head. "It flashed once. Too controlled."

"Shooter?" Cara asked.

"Maybe. Maybe not." Cade's jaw tightened. "But we treat it as hostile until we know otherwise."

Nobody argued. The memory of yesterday's ambush remained too fresh, the sound of rounds punching through metal still lodged in their heads.

Seth looked back over the valley, committing every street and intersection to memory before opening the notebook to a clean page. "Alright." He marked an X over the sporting goods store. "Primary objective." He circled the hardware store. "Secondary." Finally, he underlined the pharmacy. "If we can get antibiotics, insulin, and trauma supplies, it's worth the risk."

Jay nodded. "And if anything feels off?"