The door slammed shut hard enough to rattle the shelves.
Justin didn't think—he reacted.
His shoulder hit the metal with a grunt as he threw his weight into it, boots skidding on the slick tile. The impact knocked the breath from his lungs, but he didn't pull away. He couldn't. Something slammed back from the other side almost immediately, hard enough to jolt his spine.
Palms.
Nails.
Forearms.
The sound wasn't pounding—it was scraping. Frantic. Wet. Like skin being dragged across steel again and again, like the building itself was being clawed open from the outside.
"Back," Justin hissed, teeth clenched. "Back—back—"
The lock clicked home with a sharp metallic snap.
Hands clawed anyway.
Fingernails shrieked across the door. Something thudded against it shoulder-first, then slid down slowly, leaving a sound that made Justin's stomach turn. The door bowed but held.
For now.
Ethan stayed tight to the door, weapon raised, stance rigid and useless at this range. Too close. Too many. He didn't fire. He couldn't. His finger hovered near the trigger anyway, shaking once before he forced it still with sheer will.
The man who'd made it inside didn't look back.
He staggered away from the door like gravity had suddenly doubled, like his bones had turned to sand. He didn't ask where he was. Didn't ask who they were. Didn't even look around.
He collapsed against the nearest shelf and slid down until he hit the floor hard enough to knock the air out of himself.
His knees folded inward, knocking together once. His head dropped forward. His hands shook violently as he tried to breathe and couldn't seem to get enough air no matter how wide his mouth opened. Each inhale hitched halfway in, sharp and shallow, like his lungs had forgotten how to do their job.
The sounds at the door didn't stop.
They scraped. They pressed. They dragged.
Justin crouched in front of him, keeping his body between the man and the glass without thinking about why. It wasn't bravery. It wasn't heroism.
It was instinct.
"Hey," Justin said quietly, voice low and steady like he was afraid loudness might shatter what little was left of the man in front of him. "Hey. You're inside. You're breathing. Focus on that."
The man sucked in a breath that sounded like it hurt his ribs, like something inside his chest was tearing every time it expanded.
"I left her," he said.
The words didn't come out loud. They fell out of him.
Justin stilled.
The man's eyes weren't really seeing Justin. They were fixed somewhere beyond the walls—out in the parking lot, out in the street, locked on a moment that hadn't stopped replaying yet. His gaze flickered like a broken video, jumping between frames that didn't belong together.
"I left her," he said again.
Like repetition might make it untrue.
Like if he said it enough times, the world might rewind and give him another chance to choose differently.
Justin didn't rush him.
Silence mattered in moments like this. Silence was the only thing that didn't demand something back.
"What's your name?" Justin asked finally, voice steady because it had to be. Because if he cracked, the man in front of him would shatter.
The man swallowed hard. His throat worked like it was fighting him. "Caleb," he said. "Caleb Harris."
"How old are you, Caleb?"
"Twenty-five." His voice cracked, thin and frayed. "I—I work at the McDonald's next to the mall. Off Abercorn."
Justin nodded once.
Anchoring details mattered. Names mattered. Normal things mattered—jobs, streets, routines. They were proof that the person sitting in front of him had existed before all of this. That he'd had a life that didn't involve blood on tile and hands clawing at steel.
"My wife—" Caleb broke off.
The word hung in the air, unfinished.
He dragged both hands down his face, smearing blood and tears together until his palms shook harder. When he pressed his hands to his eyes, his shoulders caved in, like his body had finally caught up with the truth his mouth couldn't finish saying.
"Janelle," he managed. "Her name was Janelle."
Ethan's jaw tightened so hard Justin could see it from across the aisle. The muscle jumped once, then locked.
"She worked at the shoe store in the mall," Caleb continued, words spilling now, tumbling over each other like if he stopped talking he might drown in the quiet. "Journeys. She loved that place. Said it was temporary, but she liked helping people pick things that made them feel good."
His breath hitched. "She was just dropping me off."
Justin nodded again.
Just dropping me off.
Normal morning. Normal ride. Normal goodbye that wasn't supposed to be the last one.
"We tried to drive," Caleb said. "Traffic locked up. Red lights everywhere. Cars just stopped like someone hit pause." His laugh came out wrong—sharp and hollow, stripped of humor. "People just… left them. Open doors. Engines still running. Like they forgot cars were even a thing."
Justin closed his eyes for half a second.
"Everyone ran," Caleb said. "Like it was a fire drill. Like someone yelled evacuate and nobody asked why."
He swallowed hard and kept going.
"We hid in an office building. A bunch of us. Thought we were safe. Thought we were smart." His breathing hitched. "An hour ago someone started shaking. Like a seizure. Fell to the floor. We thought he was overdosing or something."
Caleb's fingers curled into the tile.
"Then he screamed," he whispered. "And then he bit someone."
Justin felt his chest tighten.
"Everyone turned on each other," Caleb said. "No one knew who was sick. Who was next. People started accusing each other. Pushing. Locking doors." His voice dropped. "It wasn't even the dead that broke us at first."
He looked up at Justin then, eyes red-rimmed and wild, pupils blown wide.
"They're fast," he said suddenly. "Some of them. Not all. But enough." His voice shook with urgency now. "They were on us before we even realized—before she even finished screaming."
Justin felt something cold slide down his spine.
Fast.
Not shuffling.
Not slow.
Fast enough to matter.
"Janelle and I ran again," Caleb said. "She fell. I tried to pull her up." His voice collapsed completely, folding inward like paper set on fire. "She told me to go."
He pressed his fists into his eyes like he was trying to physically shove the memory away.
"She said my name," he whispered. "Like it was the last thing she had left."
Justin didn't lie.
"You didn't kill her," he said quietly.
Caleb shook his head, breathing hard, shoulders trembling. "Feels like I did."
He stayed there like that—curled in on himself, shaking, breathing like every inhale was a fight—for a long moment while the door behind them continued to scrape and groan.
Justin stayed crouched in front of him.
He didn't offer platitudes.
He didn't tell him it would be okay.
He just stayed.
Because sometimes the only thing you could do for someone was witness the worst moment of their life and not look away.
Outside, the dead kept clawing.
Inside, a man tried to learn how to breathe again without the woman who had taught him how to love.
And there was no clean way out of either of those things.