Wednesday, December 10, 2025, 1:45 PM
Countdown to Extraction: 60 Hours, 56 Minutes Remaining
Dot didn't move.
At first, the absolute stillness in the pitch-black apartment felt like mercy. After the adrenaline spike of the concrete stairs, the deafening gunshot, and the heavy door nearly coming apart under rotting hands and shattered teeth, the quiet felt like a pause the world owed them.
Mari was the first to realize it wasn't mercy. It was an absence.
"Dot?" Mari whispered, dropping to her knees on the stained carpet beside the older woman.
Nothing.
Mari reached out, her trembling fingers brushing Dot's shoulder. The heavy fabric of the coat felt damp. Mari slid her hand down to touch Dot's wrist. Her skin was clammy, coated in a thick, cold sweat that shouldn't have been there. Her chest rose, but barely. The breaths were shallow, erratic, and fundamentally wrong.
"Dot," Mari said again, her voice cracking, significantly louder in the dark room.
Renee hovered near the overturned sofa, still clutching the note from her pregnant sister like it might physically dissolve if she let it go. Tally stood frozen by the barricaded door, her eyes locked on the heavy wood as something wet and heavy scraped slowly across the exterior frame. Ethan paced the small living area once, twice, his combat knife drawn, checking the dark corners out of sheer military instinct even though the apartment was sealed tight.
Mari shook Dot harder.
"Hey—no, no, no," Mari pleaded, pure panic finally snapping through her voice. "Dot, wake up."
Dot's head lolled lifelessly to the side.
Mari's hand slipped down Dot's arm as she tried to reposition the older woman, her fingers catching on something hard beneath the sleeve of the coat.
Plastic.
Mari pulled the heavy cuff back.
There it was. A thin, medical alert bracelet. Blue band. White lettering.
DIABETIC — INSULIN DEPENDENT
Mari's breath punched entirely out of her chest.
"Oh my God," Mari whispered, the words falling like lead weights onto the carpet.
Ethan was at her side instantly. The former operator took one look at the blue bracelet and swore—a sharp, ugly, guttural sound of a man who knew exactly how lethal the mathematics of biology could be.
"She didn't tell anyone," Mari gasped, her chest heaving. "She never said—"
"Doesn't matter," Ethan cut in, his voice a cold, absolute flatline. He dropped to one knee, checking Dot's carotid pulse with practiced, urgent fingers. "She's crashing."
Renee blinked at them in the gloom, her delayed shock finally catching up to the new crisis. "Crashing how?"
"Blood sugar," Ethan stated grimly. "My grandmother had Type 1. If she drops completely into a coma, her organs are going to start shutting off like lights in a house. She's going into systemic shock."
Tally's voice came out incredibly thin from the doorway. "How long does she have?"
Ethan kept his fingers pressed against Dot's neck, his jaw tight. "Minutes. Maybe hours if we're incredibly lucky. We have absolutely no idea when she took her last dose of insulin or what her baseline was before the world ended."
Mari nodded, hot tears burning her eyes. "She needs insulin. Or glucose. Or something to stabilize her."
"Tear the place apart," Ethan ordered, standing up. "Look for a kit. A pen. Vials. Anything."
They scrambled in the dim, ash-filtered light filtering through the blinds, desperately searching Troy and Kimmie's apartment.
It didn't take long for the depressing reality of the space to sink in. The apartment wasn't just messy; it was a quintessential white-trash disaster zone. It smelled heavily of stale beer, cheap weed, and unwashed laundry. The tiny kitchenette was piled high with crusty, mold-spotted dishes. The small coffee table in the living room was entirely covered in overflowing ashtrays, eviction notices, and dozens of empty, crushed orange pill bottles. Troy's addiction was proudly on display, scattered across every flat surface in the room. There were no baby books. There were no prenatal vitamins. Just the miserable, chaotic wreckage of a pill-addicted former golf pro and a terrified, pregnant girl.
"Nothing," Renee cried frantically, pulling out empty drawers in the kitchenette. "There's nothing here but stale saltines and Oxycontin bottles!"
No insulin. No sugar. No mercy.
Dot groaned faintly—a wet, rattling sound deep in her chest that barely existed—and then went entirely still again.
Mari grabbed Ethan's arm, her grip desperate. "She's dying."
Ethan didn't pull away. He looked at the older woman's grey face. "I know."
Renee sucked in a sharp, ragged breath, her mind rapidly calculating routes now that the panic had somewhere to focus. "There's a CVS."
Everyone turned to her in the dark.
"A block over," Renee said quickly, her words tripping over themselves. "On the other side of these apartments. Next to Klassy Kats, the strip club. Across from Michaels—right by the Oglethorpe Mall."
Mari swallowed hard. She knew exactly where that was. So did Ethan.
Renee's face fell instantly as the brutal reality of the location set in. "But it's off Abercorn Street."
Silence hit the room like a physical blow.
Abercorn Street.
Marcus had mentioned it earlier, right before he had been torn apart in the ditch. The arterial road was a parking lot from hell. Cars jammed bumper to bumper. Bodies stuck between them. The infected moving in massive, undulating swarms through the wreckage. And now, the thermobaric bomb had drawn thousands more directly into the area.
"There's no driving through that," Ethan said quietly, stating a lethal fact. "Not even close. The Jeep wouldn't make it fifty yards."
Renee hugged herself, shivering violently despite the stale heat in the apartment. "We'd have to go on foot."
"Are you fucking kidding me?!" Tally exploded from the door, her voice a harsh, venomous hiss that cut through the gloom.
Every head snapped toward the teenager.
Tally stepped away from the barricade, her arms crossed tight, her face a mask of pure, unadulterated spite. "We don't have time for this bullshit! We are sitting in a dead city, the military is bombing the grid, and my brother is out there somewhere! We are not stopping for this!"
"Tally—" Mari started, her tone warning.
"No!" Tally snapped back, pointing a shaking, accusatory finger at Dot's unconscious body. "Look at her! She's old! She's practically got one foot in the grave anyway! You're going to risk two healthy lives for one old woman who is going to die soon regardless? It's completely stupid!"
Renee looked at the teenager in absolute disgust. "You vicious little bitch."
"I'm realistic!" Tally yelled back, not caring about the volume. "If you walk out that door, you are going to die! We leave her, and we get back to the Jeep!"
Mari stared at Tally. The cold, venomous bitch routine was perfectly executed. The words were cruel, calculating, and dripping with malice. But Mari wasn't looking at the armor; she was looking at the cracks underneath it.
She saw Tally's shoulders trembling. She saw the sheer, unadulterated terror swimming wildly in the girl's bloodshot eyes. Tally wasn't a sociopath. She was just a terrified seventeen-year-old girl who had already lost her parents, watched her brother disappear into a horde of teeth, and was now staring at the only two adults keeping her alive walking out into the apocalypse. Tally was lashing out because she was absolutely petrified of being left completely alone in the dark.
Mari didn't slap her. She didn't yell.
"You don't mean that," Mari said quietly, her voice steady and entirely devoid of anger.
Tally flinched like she had been struck, her mouth opening and closing wordlessly, the harsh facade momentarily failing. She looked down at the carpet, her jaw trembling violently.
Ethan stood up, ignoring the teenager entirely.
"I'm going," Ethan said to the room.
Mari stepped forward. "I'm going with you."
"No," Renee said immediately, stepping in front of Ethan. "You can't."
"He can't go alone," Mari said firmly, her voice dropping the frantic pitch of a college girl and adopting the cold, necessary resolve of a survivor. "That's how people die. One mistake. One slip on the ash. One mechanic grabbing you from a blind spot in the smoke."
Renee's voice cracked. "You're in no shape for this, Mari."
Mari stiffened, her hand instinctively hovering near her stomach, but she didn't explain. She couldn't afford to be weak. "Not your call."
"This isn't about sexism, Mari!" Renee pleaded desperately. "This is about survival!"
Mari took a deliberate step closer to Ethan. "Exactly. And survival doesn't mean hiding behind a barricaded door while someone else bleeds out on the floor. Justin didn't die so we could sit here and watch Dot choke to death in a trash-filled apartment. We survive by fighting for each other."
Dot let out another faint sound. Wet. Rattling.
Mari looked Ethan dead in the eye. "If we don't go, she dies. And I am entirely done watching people disappear because we were too scared to move."
Ethan studied Mari for a long, heavy moment. He wasn't patronizing her. He was calculating the horrific mathematics of the excursion.
Ethan finally nodded exactly once.
"Five minutes," Ethan commanded, his voice dropping into a lethal, tactical whisper. "We leave now. But we leave the guns holstered. Gunfire draws the swarm. We use blunt force. We move quiet. We do not engage unless we absolutely have to. We get in the pharmacy, get the insulin, and get back."
"We can't just walk out there," Mari said, pointing to the window blinds. "The sky is completely black from the bombs. It looks like midnight. And it's raining ash. If that gets in our eyes or our lungs—"
"We cover up," Ethan said, moving quickly to the laundry basket overflowing with Troy's filthy clothes in the corner.
He pulled out two stained, heavy flannel shirts. He drew his combat knife and violently ripped the fabric into long, wide strips. He tossed one to Mari and kept one for himself.
"Tie it tight over your nose and mouth," Ethan instructed. "Keep your head down."
Mari wrapped the thick, stale-smelling flannel tightly around the lower half of her face, tying the knot securely at the base of her skull. The air immediately tasted like stale beer and dust, but it filtered out the heavy, copper reek of the city.
Ethan rummaged through the clutter near the door, finding two dirty Atlanta Braves baseball hats hanging on a hook. He tossed one to Mari. "Pull it down low. Keep the toxic ash out of your hair and out of your eyes."
Mari pulled the cap on, adjusting the brim low over her brow.
"We need weapons with reach," Ethan muttered, scanning the dark, trash-filled apartment.
His eyes landed on the corner of the living room, near the sliding glass door. A massive, professional-grade leather golf bag was propped against the wall—a dusty monument to Troy's failed career before the pills took over.
Ethan stepped over an empty pizza box and pulled a heavy, titanium 9-iron out of the bag. He tested the weight, whipping it once through the air. The steel shaft hummed. It was a perfectly balanced, heavy blunt-force instrument.
He pulled a heavy wedge out and handed it to Mari.
"Steel shafts," Ethan said, his voice completely devoid of emotion. "Don't swing wild. If they get close, you aim for the joints to break their mobility, or you aim for the skull. Understand?"
Mari gripped the rubber handle of the golf club. It was heavy, solid, and incredibly lethal. She nodded once.
Renee grabbed Mari's arm, her grip painfully tight. "If you don't come back—"
Mari squeezed her hand, pulling away gently. "Lock the door behind us."
Tally looked up from the corner, her eyes red, the bitchy armor completely gone. She looked small. Terrified.
"Please," Tally whispered, her voice breaking.
Mari nodded to the teenager. "Watch Dot. Keep her breathing."
The apocalyptic clock inside Mari's head screamed.
They didn't say a long goodbye. They didn't pray. The time for prayers had completely burned up in the thermobaric fire an hour ago.
They didn't go through the barricaded front door. Ethan moved to the small, sliding glass door leading to the second-floor balcony. He unlocked the latch, sliding the glass open just enough to slip through.
The air outside was thick, choking, and completely black. It looked exactly like midnight, despite it being two-thirty in the afternoon. The sky was entirely erased by the toxic smoke of a burning Savannah.
Ethan climbed over the rusted iron railing, his face covered by the flannel rag, the 9-iron gripped tightly in his fist. He dropped silently into the dark, ash-covered alley behind the motel.
Mari took a deep, terrifying breath through her mask, gripped the heavy golf club, swung her legs over the iron, and dropped down right behind him.
The heavy thud of their boots on the asphalt seemed deafening.
Ethan slowly stood up in the gloom, looking down the long, suffocating darkness of the alleyway toward Abercorn Street. He saw the shifting shadows. He heard the wet, clicking snarls echoing through the smoke.
"Fuck," Ethan whispered into his rag.
And they walked out into the dark.
Wednesday, December 10, 2025, 2:30 PM
Countdown to Extraction: 60 Hours, 11 Minutes Remaining