The street never really went quiet anymore.
Even when it looked empty, something was always moving somewhere — a shape in a window, a shadow dragging itself along pavement, the low wet chorus of the dead carrying through the humid night air.
Mari stayed low as they crossed the next stretch of road.
The CVS sign glowed faintly ahead, flickering red like a dying heartbeat. Every step toward it felt heavier. Slower. Like the city itself was trying to hold them in place long enough for something to notice.
Then an engine roared.
Loud.
Too loud.
Headlights swung wide around the far corner and a car came tearing down the street like a missile. Tires screeched as it fishtailed across two lanes, barely missing a line of abandoned vehicles.
Music blasted from blown speakers — bass so heavy it vibrated through the pavement and into Mari's boots.
Luis swore under his breath. "You've got to be kidding me…"
The car swerved again.
Closer now.
The driver's window was down.
A man hung halfway out of it with a handgun, firing wildly into the darkness.
"FUCK YOU!" he screamed, voice raw and breaking. "FUCK YOU, YOU DEAD PIECES OF SHIT!"
Gunshots cracked through the night.
Wild. Sloppy. Uncontrolled.
He fired again and again into a cluster of staggering bodies near the sidewalk. One corpse dropped. Another kept coming. Another turned toward the sound.
The man laughed — high and hysterical.
Then he started crying.
"I'LL KILL YOU ALL!" he howled, voice cracking into something broken. "YOU TOOK HER! YOU TOOK HER FROM ME!"
He slammed the gas.
The car surged forward straight into a group of the dead.
Impact thundered through the street.
Bodies rolled over the hood, smashing against the windshield. One slammed into the roof hard enough to dent it inward. Blood sprayed across the glass in a dark sheet that the wipers tried and failed to clear.
The driver kept firing.
Kept screaming.
Kept crying.
He didn't see the larger mass spilling out from the side street.
They poured in fast — drawn by the music, the engine, the gunfire, the human noise of someone who didn't care if he lived or died.
The car hit them full speed.
Metal screamed.
The front tire blew.
The vehicle spun sideways and slammed into a light pole with a bone-jarring crack.
The music cut off mid-beat.
For one second there was silence.
Then the horde hit the car.
Hands slammed against the doors. Faces smashed against the windows. The driver tried to fire again — one more wild shot — but bodies dragged him through the shattered glass before he could aim.
His screaming lasted longer than it should have.
Then it didn't.
Mari felt it in her chest even from across the street — that raw, animal sound cutting off under wet feeding noise.
Reggie grabbed her sleeve. "Move. Now."
They moved.
Fast and low.
Using the chaos as cover.
The feeding frenzy behind them drew the majority of the dead toward the wreck, giving the group a narrow window across the open parking lot.
They ran bent low between abandoned carts and scattered merchandise. Somewhere to their right, a pickup truck backed hard into a storefront window.
Looters.
Two men jumped from the truck bed and started hauling boxes out like it was still a normal robbery. One laughed loudly, tossing items over his shoulder.
He didn't see the corpse rising from beneath the shattered display.
It grabbed his ankle.
He went down hard.
The laugh turned into a scream that cut through the lot like a siren.
The second man tried to climb back into the truck, slipping in blood already spreading across the pavement. More shapes poured from between cars.
Mari didn't look back again.
The CVS doors came into full view.
Metal security gate.
Pulled down.
Locked.
Every single one of them stopped short.
"You've got to be kidding me," Luis whispered harshly.
Reggie rattled it once, softly. Solid. No give.
Maya exhaled through her teeth. "We should've known."
Mari scanned fast. Front wasn't happening.
"Side. Back. Now."
They moved along the storefront wall, staying tight against the brick. The glow from the crashed car flickered across the lot behind them, throwing long, twitching shadows across the pavement.
A corpse lurched from behind a vending machine.
Reggie stepped in before it could fully turn.
The metal flashlight came down hard.
Once.
Twice.
The skull split with a wet crack and the body collapsed in a boneless heap at his feet.
No one commented.
They kept moving.
The alley behind the store smelled like rot and old trash. Something dripped steadily from a broken gutter, tapping against a dumpster lid with hollow rhythm.
Back door.
Locked.
Of course.
A narrow service window sat just above shoulder height, glass already cracked from some earlier impact.
Reggie wedged a crowbar into the frame and pushed slowly.
The glass gave with a dull pop.
Mari reached in, found the latch, and slid it open.
Maya climbed through first, landing silently inside. The others followed one by one, passing the duffel through last.
The interior swallowed them whole.
Dark.
Still.
Wrong.
Emergency lights flickered faintly overhead, casting everything in a sickly green hue. Shelves stood half-emptied and ransacked, carts overturned, products scattered across tile like people had fled mid-grab.
The silence pressed in heavy.
Too heavy.
Mari's footsteps felt loud even when she barely moved.
Maya led them toward the pharmacy counter at the back. "Stay sharp," she whispered. "If anything's inside—"
A faint sound.
Soft.
Not a corpse.
Mari froze.
There — near the paper goods aisle. Something small shifted behind a stack of toilet paper packages.
She raised her knife slowly and stepped forward.
One careful step.
Another.
She rounded the shelf.
A child stared back at her.
A little girl — maybe eight. Dirt smudged across her cheeks. Hair tangled. Eyes huge and glassy with exhaustion.
She crouched in the corner clutching a stuffed animal so tightly the fabric was twisted in her fists.
When she saw Mari, she flinched but didn't scream.
Didn't move.
Just watched.
Maya stepped closer behind Mari, voice soft. "Hey… hey, it's okay…"
Luis blinked hard. "Jesus…"
Reggie scanned the aisles automatically, tension snapping back into his shoulders.
Mari crouched slowly, lowering the knife.
"What's your name?" she asked gently.
The girl hesitated.
Then whispered, barely audible, "Ava."
Silence settled thick around them.
Outside, something slammed faintly against the storefront glass.
Inside, the fluorescent hum buzzed low and constant.
Reggie looked toward the entrance, then back at the child.
His expression shifted.
Confusion.
Then something colder.
"…wait a minute," he said slowly.
Everyone looked at him.
He gestured toward the front of the store.
"The doors were locked."
A long pause.
His eyes moved back to the girl.
"…so how the hell is she in here?"