The Missouri River valley looked peaceful from the ridge.
That was the first thing Oscar noticed.
Late afternoon light stretched across the wide bend of water below them, turning the river into a long sheet of dull silver between the muddy banks. Cottonwoods lined the shoreline in uneven clusters. Beyond them, fields rolled up toward the bluff where the town of Harlan's Ferry sat quietly in the fading sun.
Too quietly.
Oscar rested one arm across the top of the truck door and studied the town through binoculars.
"Something's wrong."
Tom slowed the convoy behind him without even asking why.
They had learned that tone.
"What do you see?"
Oscar didn't answer immediately.
He swept the lenses slowly across the streets.
Main road.
Grain elevator.
Church steeple.
Boat ramp.
Nothing moved.
No smoke from chimneys.
No animals in the pastures.
No people.
The town looked like someone had paused it.
He lowered the binoculars.
"Everything."
Tom frowned.
"That's not helpful."
Oscar handed him the binoculars.
"Look."
Tom climbed out and leaned against the truck hood while he scanned the town below.
Thirty seconds passed.
Then he muttered softly,
"Yeah."
Behind them the rest of the convoy rolled to a stop.
Four trucks.
Two wagons.
Twenty-three people in total.
Refugees, fighters, traders, and two soldiers Saul had sent west to help stabilize the corridor.
Harry stood beside the second truck, arms folded as he studied the silent town below.
Most people in the convoy knew him simply as a large, quiet boy with a dry sense of humor and a crazy growth spurt.
Sharon stood beside him, scanning the treeline with a hunter's calm patience.
Magni leaned against the wagon rail nearby, watching the river with the restless energy of someone who hated waiting.
Harry finally spoke.
"River towns shouldn't sound like that."
Oscar glanced at him.
"You've spent time around rivers?"
Harry shrugged slightly.
"Enough."
Sergeant Alvarez stepped up beside them.
"What's the call?"
Oscar gestured toward the town.
"Does that look normal to you?"
Alvarez didn't need binoculars.
He had seen enough abandoned towns since the Shroud to recognize the signs.
"No animals," he said quietly.
"Yeah."
"No wood smoke."
"Yeah."
"No movement."
Oscar looked back toward the river.
"And the boats are still tied to the dock."
Tom followed his gaze.
Two small fishing boats rocked gently against the pier.
Both still tied.
One half-filled with rainwater.
"That's bad," Tom said.
Oscar nodded.
"That's real bad."
Alvarez looked toward the convoy.
"You think it's mutants?"
Oscar shrugged.
"Water town."
"River access."
"Recent reports."
He didn't need to finish the sentence.
Everyone knew what that meant.
Tom lowered the binoculars.
"Could be empty."
Oscar looked at him.
"Could be."
Tom sighed.
"Which means we still have to check."
"Yep."
Oscar pushed away from the truck and turned toward the others.
"Alright."
People gathered quickly.
Not panicked.
But focused.
They had been traveling together long enough to know when Oscar's voice shifted into command mode.
He pointed toward the town.
"We go in slow."
"No heroics."
"No splitting up."
Alvarez nodded.
"Two-man overwatch on the ridge?"
Oscar looked at the terrain again.
A small rise overlooked the main street from the east side.
"Good spot."
He pointed to two of the convoy's riflemen.
"Ridge overwatch."
"If anything comes running out of that town, you start shooting."
Both men nodded.
Oscar turned back to the group.
"The rest of us walk."
Someone asked the question everyone had been thinking.
"What if it's infected?"
Oscar answered without hesitation.
"Then we deal with it."
⸻
They entered Harlan's Ferry from the north road.
The silence felt wrong the moment they crossed the first houses.
Not quiet.
Wrong.
Oscar had worked construction his whole life. He understood how towns sounded when people lived in them.
Wind through loose siding.
Dogs barking.
Tools clanking.
Voices.
This place had none of that.
Just wind.
The front door of the first house stood open.
Inside, a chair lay overturned beside the kitchen table.
Tom looked through the doorway.
"Looks like someone left fast."
Oscar crouched near the porch steps.
Mud.
Scuffed footprints.
Drag marks.
He followed the marks toward the road.
"They ran."
"From what?"
Oscar didn't answer.
He already knew.
The main street of Harlan's Ferry stretched downhill toward the river.
Grain shed.
Blacksmith shop.
Boarding house.
Clinic.
Church.
Everything looked intact.
That was the worst part.
Places destroyed by war or disaster made sense.
This looked like life had simply stopped.
One of the refugees pointed.
"Over there."
Oscar turned.
Near the church steps, a dark stain spread across the dirt road.
Blood.
Lots of it.
Tom crouched beside it.
"Jesus."
Oscar studied the ground.
Multiple footprints.
Struggle marks.
Something heavy dragged.
He followed the drag trail toward the clinic.
The door hung open.
Oscar raised one hand.
"Slow."
The group moved carefully across the porch.
Inside the clinic the smell hit them immediately.
Rot.
Copper.
Sickness.
Tom stepped around the overturned exam table.
Then he froze.
"Oh hell."
Oscar stepped inside beside him.
Chains.
Bolted to the bedframe.
One broken.
Another still locked.
Dark blood covered the floorboards.
Claw marks scarred the wall beside the bed.
Tom swallowed.
"They tried to hold someone."
Alvarez studied the chains.
"Didn't work."
Oscar walked slowly toward the back door.
More drag marks.
Heading outside.
Toward the river.
He stepped out into the alley.
Flies buzzed lazily in the warm air.
The drag trail continued through the mud.
Downhill.
Toward the boat ramp.
Oscar followed it without speaking.
The others trailed behind him.
The river came into view again.
Wide.
Slow.
Patient.
At the edge of the boat ramp the trail ended.
Oscar stared at the mud.
Boot prints.
Bare footprints.
And something else.
Deep impressions where heavy bodies had crawled from the water.
Tom saw it too.
"Multiple."
"Yeah."
Magni crouched beside the impressions and ran a hand along the deep grooves.
"Whatever came out of that river wasn't small."
Harry stepped closer to the shoreline.
For a moment he simply watched the slow current sliding past the dock.
Then his expression tightened.
Sharon noticed immediately.
"What?"
Harry didn't look away from the water.
"There's something wrong with the current."
Oscar raised an eyebrow.
"The current?"
Harry nodded slowly.
"It feels… crowded."
Magni frowned.
"That's a weird way to describe water."
Harry finally looked back at them.
"Trust me."
"It is."
One of the refugees pointed suddenly.
"Over there."
They turned.
A shape lay near the dock.
Oscar approached carefully.
The body had been there long enough for the river mud to dry across the skin.
Older man.
Gray beard.
Fishing jacket.
Oscar crouched beside him.
"Boat captain maybe."
Tom pointed to the neck.
Two deep punctures.
Same wounds they had heard about in the reports.
Alvarez looked toward the water again.
"That's how it starts."
Oscar stood slowly.
"Yeah."
The river moved quietly beside them.
As if nothing had happened.
Behind them something banged inside the church.
Everyone spun.
The sound came again.
A dull thud.
Then another.
Like someone hitting a door from the inside.
One of the refugees whispered,
"Please tell me that's a survivor."
Sharon tilted her head slightly, listening.
"There's more than one heartbeat down there."
Oscar raised his rifle.
"Let's hope."
They moved toward the church slowly.
The front door stood half open.
The banging came from below.
The basement.
Oscar stepped inside first.
Rows of pews.
Broken lanterns.
Blood streaks across the aisle.
Tom grimaced.
"This place went bad fast."
Another thud echoed from below.
Oscar moved toward the basement door.
He opened it slowly.
The smell hit them first.
Sweat.
Fear.
Sickness.
Then a voice called up weakly from the dark.
"Help."
Oscar exhaled slowly.
"Survivors."
Tom let out a relieved breath.
Oscar descended the stairs cautiously.
Lantern light revealed half a dozen people huddled in the far corner of the basement.
Two women.
Three men.
One teenage boy.
They looked exhausted.
Terrified.
But alive.
The oldest man stood slowly.
"You're not from here."
"No," Oscar said.
"We're passing through."
The man nodded toward the stairs.
"You need to leave."
Oscar frowned.
"Why?"
The man's eyes moved toward the boarded basement windows.
"Because they come back after dark."
Silence filled the room.
Tom looked at Oscar.
Oscar looked at the windows.
The sun outside had already begun dipping toward the horizon.
Harry turned slowly toward the river.
Something moved far out in the Missouri.
A long ripple.
Too deep for a fish.
Magni saw it too.
"That's not a catfish."
Harry's jaw tightened slightly.
"No."
"It isn't."
The ripple vanished beneath the current.
The old man whispered again.
"They're hunting now."