The memory hit Van like a physical blow for a second—the cold tiles of his parents' shop, the impossible stillness, the blue sheet. It was an old wound, ripped open by Jane's naive hope. Trust was a graveyard.

  He shook it off, his knuckles white on the wheel. The people waving from the rooftops disappeared in the side mirror. Jane sat in taut silence beside him.

  After a mile, she spoke, her voice carefully neutral. "Why so few Rotters here?"

  "Not residential. People had time to run," Van grunted, his own mind working. "No live bait, no predators."

  Their thoughts aligned. The radio. Jane flicked it on, scrolling through stations. Static. A pop song. More static. A talk show about gardening. No emergency broadcast. No panic. The world outside Hurley was still blissfully ignorant.

  "The outbreak..." Jane whispered, her eyes wide with realization. "It's contained. Patient Zero is here, in Hurley."

  The pieces clicked into place. The bitten cashier. The coughing driver. The infected colleague. All within a twenty-mile radius. All bodily fluid transmission.

  "Not air. Not water. Blood. Saliva," Van concluded, the logic grim and solid. "That's why we're still breathing."

  "Then why do they hide in houses? Why the fog?" Jane pressed her fingers to her temples. "It doesn't make sense."

  "Survive first. Solve later," Van said, his tone cutting off the speculation. Ahead, a low, wide building came into view, its sign clear even through the grime: Ace Arms & Outdoors.

  They prepped like they were entering a warzone. Cardboard and duct tape became crude limb armor. Van's T-shirt and Jane's flannel were padded with layers of stiff, corrugated shell.

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  "Grab something simple. Common ammo. And all the rounds you can carry," Jane instructed, her earlier tension channeled into focus.

  Van hefted his crowbar, its head now lashed with a hunting knife. He hesitated, then pulled the Ruger from his pocket and tucked it into Jane's cargo pants.

  "What—"

  "The rifle's too long for in here. Close quarters, this is a better last resort." His logic was cold, practical. She didn't argue. Back-to-back, they breached the gun store.

  Silence. The kind that pressed against the eardrums.

  The place was a graveyard of commerce. The glass display cases were shattered. The wall of rifles behind the counter was half-empty, picked clean. Shelves of tactical gear and ammo boxes were overturned, littering the aisles.

  Van felt a tap on his shoulder. Jane pressed a set of electronic ear protection over his head. Her voice was a breath in his ear, filtered and clear through the comms. "New plan. I'll use you as a bipod. You watch close; I'll watch far."

  The cold, solid weight of the Remington's barrel settled on his right shoulder. Her left hand gripped his left shoulder, guiding. He was her mobile gun platform.

  He moved forward, crowbar held low and ready, every sense screaming. Drops of dried blood speckled the linoleum floor like macabre confetti, but no pools, no bodies. That was worse.

  They reached a rack of shotguns. Jane nudged him. Her voice crackled in his ear. "Far left. Second from the bottom."

  Van grabbed it. It was heavy, brutally functional.

  "Benelli M4 Super 90. Semi-auto. Five-plus-one capacity. Point and click," Jane's voice narrated in his ear. A weapon even a novice could use to devastating effect. He slung it over his shoulder.

  "Ammo aisle. Now."

  They moved deeper into the store, an uneasy four-legged creature of death. Past racks of camo, past a display of hunting knives. Van's eyes scanned every shadow, every overturned shelf. Jane's breathing was steady in his ear, the rifle's scope panning across the gloom.

  They were nearing the back, the reinforced door to the range and storage area, when Jane's grip on his shoulder tightened like a vice.

  Her voice, when it came through the comms, was a ghost of a whisper, sharp with tension. "Stop."

  Van froze. He heard it then, too. Not a Rotter's growl. Not the scrabble of claws.

  From behind the heavy metal door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY / RANGE, a sound seeped out. Faint. Human.

  The ragged, unmistakable sound of someone crying.