They didn't look back at first.
Not really.
The Jeep rolled away from the gas station slow and deliberate, tires crunching over glass and debris, engine noise kept low like it might offend something listening too closely. Ethan kept his hands steady on the wheel, shoulders tight, eyes flicking between mirrors and the road ahead.
But no one inside stopped thinking about the alley.
Mari finally did look—just once—twisting in her seat until the seatbelt bit into her shoulder. Her breath caught as she searched the dark mouth of the street where Justin had vanished, eyes desperate for movement, for a shape running, for anything that proved they hadn't left him behind for nothing.
There was nothing.
No shadow breaking free.
No body stumbling into the street.
No sound but the dead.
She turned back forward before anyone could see her face completely collapse.
They couldn't linger.
Ethan knew it. Dot knew it. Everyone knew it.
Movement was a magnet.
Already, shapes were turning toward the Jeep—slow at first, then faster—drawn by the rolling metal beast cutting through the quiet. Arms lifted. Heads snapped. Mouths opened.
"Eyes forward," Ethan said again, quieter this time, like he was reminding himself as much as them.
The road ahead was a nightmare maze.
Abandoned cars sat crooked across lanes, doors flung open, some still idling uselessly until their engines coughed and died. Bodies lay where people had fallen—some still, some not. Others dragged themselves along the asphalt, leaving dark streaks behind them like the road itself was bleeding.
Ethan weaved when he could.
Swerved when he had to.
Sometimes he just plowed through smaller obstacles, the Jeep's suspension rocking violently as they rolled over something that might have once been human.
No one commented.
No one screamed.
Shock had wrapped them tight.
They passed a bus with its windows shattered outward. A hand hung limp from one of the frames, fingers blackened and stiff. A few seats inside were occupied by shapes that still moved, bumping against the glass from the inside like they hadn't figured out the doors were gone.
Further down, a house burned unchecked, flames licking the porch rail while something staggered in circles on the lawn, clothes half-melted, skin sloughing away in shiny strips.
Kenzie buried her face in Barbie's pack, whispering apologies to the dog like it was her fault the world had ended.
Marcus kept muttering under his breath—numbers, directions, curses—trying to keep track of where they were even though every familiar landmark looked wrong now.
It felt like hours.
It wasn't.
Later, Ethan would realize they'd barely gone three miles.
They slowed near a cluster of apartment buildings where people leaned out of windows, waving fabric, cardboard, ripped pieces of furniture painted with shaking hands.
HELP
BABY INSIDE
WE ARE ALIVE
PLEASE
A man stood on a second-story balcony screaming until his voice cracked, pointing frantically down the street at the Jeep like it was the last boat leaving shore.
Mari's chest tightened painfully.
"Ethan…" she started.
He shook his head once, firm. "We can't."
The words were flat, brutal, final.
As if to prove his point, movement erupted from between two parked cars—five, then ten bodies spilling into the street, drawn by the sound and the sight of something still moving.
Ethan hit the gas just enough to pull them free.
The screams behind them didn't stop.
No one spoke about it.
They passed other groups too—clusters of survivors moving on foot, some armed with bats or pipes, others pushing shopping carts stacked with whatever they'd managed to grab. Faces turned toward the Jeep with equal parts hope and suspicion.
A woman raised a hand like she might wave them down.
Her partner pulled her back too late.
Something tackled him from behind, both of them disappearing in a tangle of limbs before Ethan could even slow.
Mari squeezed her eyes shut.
They drove on.
Then Lila froze.
"Stop," she said suddenly.
Ethan glanced at her in the mirror. "What?"
"Stop," she repeated, louder now, voice cracking. "Please—stop."
She was leaning forward, staring out the side window so hard her knuckles had gone white gripping the seat.
"That's—" Her breath hitched. "That's her."
Ethan slowed despite himself.
On the sidewalk, half-hidden behind a mailbox, stood a familiar figure—thin, dark hair pulled back messily, a ripped hoodie hanging off one shoulder. Next to her was a man Lila recognized just as well, taller, jaw clenched, gripping a crowbar like he'd never let go of it again.
Her roommate.
And her roommate's boyfriend.
Alive.
"Oh my God," Lila whispered. "Oh my God, they're alive."
She unbuckled before anyone could stop her.
"No," Dot said sharply. "Lila—don't."
"I thought they were dead," Lila cried. "I thought I lost them yesterday—I watched the apartment burn, I—" She was already reaching for the door handle. "That's my family."
The Jeep slowed to a crawl.
The figures on the sidewalk saw them now.
Her roommate's face lit up in stunned disbelief, mouth falling open as she started waving frantically.
"Lila!" she screamed. "Lila—wait—"
Movement stirred around them.
A body dragged itself from a doorway. Another lurched from behind a car. A few more turned at the sound of voices, heads cocking in that horrible, curious way.
Ethan stopped the Jeep completely.
The engine idled.
Danger screamed through the air.
"You have thirty seconds," Ethan said tightly. "Thirty. You go, or you stay. We do not split the car."
Lila's heart felt like it was tearing in two.
She looked at the people who had survived this with her—their faces bruised, hollow, still breathing because they'd moved together.
Then she looked back at the sidewalk.
At the woman who had shared her clothes, her food, her late-night panic talks.
At the man who had once fixed their sink at three in the morning and stayed to make coffee afterward.
They were calling her name again.
She stood there, frozen between the open door and the seat.
The dead were closing in.
The road didn't care.
And Lila had to choose—right now—who she was going to try to survive with in a world that didn't promise anything to anyone anymore.