The group pressed forward in grim silence, each step deliberate, each breath shallow to avoid drawing attention. The camouflage clung to them like a second skin thick, rancid, and suffocating. Alister led, his once-resplendent armor now a grotesque mockery of its former glory, coated in layers of congealed blood and viscera. Andrea followed immediately behind, then T-Dog, their movements synchronized in the slow, shambling gait they had observed in the dead countless times.
The fence loomed ahead, its rusted links offering the only narrow passage between buildings. Beyond it lay the open street, and beyond that, the faint hope of the van if Glenn and Rick had managed to circle back.
Alister reached the fence first. He tested the gap between the bottom rail and the cracked pavement barely wide enough for a person to crawl beneath. Without hesitation, he dropped to his knees and began to slide through, armor scraping against metal with a low, grating sound that made Andrea flinch.
For several agonizing seconds, nothing happened.
Then the nearest walkers only fifteen feet away turned their milky eyes in his direction.
They paused.
Sniffed the air.
And turned away.
Andrea exhaled a fraction of the breath she had been holding. She dropped next, crawling after Alister with as little disturbance as possible. T-Dog followed, cursing under his breath as his shoulder caught briefly on the fence. The metal groaned once softly but the dead did not react.
They emerged on the other side.
The street ahead was choked with walkers, perhaps forty or fifty milling in uneven clusters. Some dragged broken limbs; others stood motionless, as though waiting for a sound or scent to rouse them. The three survivors rose slowly, mimicking the lifeless sway of the crowd around them.
Alister moved first, stepping into the flow of bodies. He did not look back. Andrea and T-Dog fell in behind him, close enough to remain part of the same drifting mass, far enough to avoid touching.
Every few steps, a walker brushed against Alister's armored shoulder. None reacted.
They walked.
Minutes stretched into eternity. The stench was unbearable, the wet slap of gore against metal and fabric a constant reminder of their disguise. Andrea kept her eyes forward, fighting the urge to gag. T-Dog muttered prayers under his breath half-remembered words from childhood.
Halfway down the block, a single walker turned directly toward them.
It stared.
Its head tilted.
Alister did not flinch. He continued forward at the same slow, uneven pace, shoulder brushing the creature's arm as he passed. The walker swayed once, then resumed its aimless wandering.
They kept moving.
At the end of the street, the narrow passage opened onto a wider avenue. There, half-hidden behind an overturned delivery truck, sat the van engine off, lights dark. Glenn stood beside the open driver's door, pistol raised, scanning the crowd. Rick crouched near the rear, watching the opposite direction.
Andrea's heart lurched.
They were still thirty yards away.
Alister raised one gauntleted hand slowly, deliberately in a subtle signal. Glenn's eyes widened. He lowered his weapon a fraction, disbelief warring with relief.
The three survivors continued their slow advance, weaving through the last thickest cluster of walkers. Ten yards. Five.
Then Alister stumbled just slightly his boot catching on a piece of broken curb.
The sound was small.
But in the silence of the disguised march, it may as well have been a gunshot.
Three walkers closest to them turned sharply.
One lunged.
Alister reacted instantly. His broken sword still clutched in his right hand came up in a brutal arc, cleaving through the creature's neck. The head spun away. Dark fluid sprayed across his visor.
The second walker grabbed at Andrea. She drove her knife upward under its chin, pinning its jaw shut before it could bite. T-Dog slammed the third against the side of the van, crushing its skull against the metal with the butt of his pistol.
The noise brief, sharp, violent rippled outward.
Heads turned.
Moans rose.
The crowd began to shift.
"Move!" Rick barked, already yanking open the rear doors.
Alister shoved Andrea toward the van. She scrambled inside. T-Dog followed. Alister vaulted in last, armor clanging against the frame as Rick slammed the doors shut behind him.
Glenn threw himself into the driver's seat. The engine roared to life.
Walkers pressed against the windows, palms smearing gore across the glass.
Glenn floored the accelerator.
The van lurched forward, tires spinning briefly on blood-slick asphalt before finding traction. Bodies thudded against the sides, rolled under the wheels. The vehicle punched through the thinning edge of the horde and burst onto clearer pavement.
For several blocks they drove in silence, the only sounds the labored breathing of five exhausted survivors and the wet slap of wipers clearing blood from the windshield.
Then Jacqui's voice weak, cracked came from the back.
"Alister?"
He turned.
She lay propped against the side wall, eyes glassy but open. Blood still seeped from the wound in her side, but she was conscious. Alive.
Alister removed his helmet with shaking hands. His face pale, streaked with filth, eyes hollow was exposed for the first time since the siege began.
He knelt beside her.
"You live," he said. The words came out rough, almost disbelieving.
Jacqui managed the ghost of a smile.
"Told you… I'd come back for you."
He bowed his head once formal, reverent then pressed his gauntleted hand gently against hers.
"I failed you," he whispered. "I thought… I thought I had lost you."
Jacqui shook her head, the motion small and pained.
"You gave me time. You gave me a chance. That's not failure."
The van rattled on, carrying them out of the city.
Behind them, the groans of the dead faded into the distance.
Ahead lay the long road back to the quarry camp and whatever fragile safety still remained.
But for the first time since the siege began, the survivors allowed themselves the smallest measure of hope.
They were all still breathing.
And they were together.