Apocalypse Day 16 — Afternoon — Tellico Plains, Tennessee
Tellico Plains should've looked like a postcard town—one of those places that sold fudge in the summer and put up lights on every lamppost in December.
Instead it looked like the moment after a storm, when everything is still and wrong and waiting for you to notice what got broken.
Ethan rolled the SUV down the main road at a crawl, tires crunching over scattered glass. The sun was high but dimmed by that dirty haze in the sky, turning everything the color of old bone. Storefront windows were shattered in places, not all of them—just enough to suggest the town hadn't been flattened so much as… hollowed out.
Grace sat in the passenger seat with her seatbelt on tight, shoulders tucked in like she was trying to make herself smaller. Her cheeks were pale, her freckles standing out against the washed color of her skin. She'd peeled off her thermal earlier and now wore the same fitted gray tank top she'd slept in under her layers—practical, sweat-stained at the ribs, the neckline modest but still outlining the natural fullness of her chest when she breathed. A lightweight flannel was tied around her waist. It should've looked casual. On Grace, with her hair still in that tight knot and her eyes scanning every shadow, it looked like armor.
Ethan kept his hands light on the wheel, gaze moving—mirrors, rooftops, alleys, the gaps between parked cars. He didn't feel like a hero. He felt like an average guy with average features who'd seen enough training videos and enough real bodies to know what danger looked like before it introduced itself.
A figure stumbled out from between two vehicles up ahead.
For a second, Grace's hand shot toward Ethan's arm. "E—"
Ethan didn't slam the brakes. He didn't swerve. He just eased off the gas and watched.
It was a man in an oil-stained work shirt, one sleeve torn loose. He moved with an unsteady urgency, like he'd been running for a while and his legs were forgetting how. His face was smeared with something dark. Blood, maybe. Dirt.
He saw the SUV and lifted both arms, waving hard.
Relief hit his face like sunlight. His mouth opened wide.
Grace leaned forward, breath catching. "He's alive. He—"
Ethan's eyes stayed on the man's hands. Empty. But the way he moved—too frantic, too forward—set alarms off in Ethan's head. And the smear on the man's chin wasn't just blood.
It looked… dried. Crusted. Like something had been chewed.
The man lurched closer, slapping a palm against the hood as Ethan slowed. His voice came out ragged and too loud. "Please—please—take me—"
The smell hit through the cracked window. Not normal sweat. Not normal blood.
Rot.
Grace recoiled, one hand flying to her mouth. Ethan saw her swallow hard, fighting nausea again.
The man's eyes flicked to Grace, then back to Ethan. His mouth worked like he was tasting the air. His tongue looked dark.
Ethan didn't speak. He didn't negotiate. He didn't help.
He put the SUV into reverse—slow, controlled—backing away while the man slapped and pawed at the hood, following like a dog that smelled meat.
"Ethan!" Grace's voice cracked, half-plea.
Ethan's jaw tightened. "Look at his mouth."
Grace looked—and froze.
The man's lips were split. Teeth stained. Gums swollen. There were bite marks on his own wrist like he'd tried to gnaw at himself and failed. And when he opened his mouth again to beg, the sound that came out wasn't a word. It was a wet, hungry rasp.
Ethan swung the wheel, rolled forward, and left him standing in the road, arms reaching after them.
Grace twisted in her seat, watching him shrink in the rear window. "We just—"
"We don't gamble," Ethan said, voice low and hard. "Not on that."
Grace's eyes glistened. She pressed her palm to her stomach again like she was trying to steady herself from the inside out.
Ethan pretended not to see it, even as something cold sat in his chest. He couldn't afford to have that conversation yet. Not when they still didn't have food, water, or a plan.
They passed the center of town without stopping. Ethan didn't want the main street. Main streets were funnels. Funnels were where you died.
He angled toward the edge—where a small gas station sat near the road out of town, the kind that had a faded soda sign and a dead-looking grill out front.
The place was quiet.
Too quiet.
Ethan parked behind the building, out of sight from the road, and killed the engine. He didn't immediately move. He listened.
Wind. A distant creak of metal. Something soft that might've been a door swinging.
No voices. No obvious movement.
Grace shifted, pulling her flannel from her waist and shrugging into it. The fabric hung open, framing her tank top, and Ethan's eyes did that involuntary thing again—tracking the way the shirt pulled across her chest when she moved, the shape of her hips under the waistband of her leggings.
His brain offered him the comfort of familiarity for half a second.
Then he pushed it away.
"Stay close," he said. "Do what I say the first time."
Grace gave him a look that said she hated being told what to do.
Then she nodded anyway. "Okay."
Ethan checked his rifle sling by habit, then stepped out, keeping the door mostly closed behind him to avoid that sharp thunk that traveled too far. Grace followed, quieter than she looked like she should be in hiking boots.
Around the corner, the gas station storefront stared at them with dead glass. One of the front windows was spiderwebbed but intact. The door was shut.
Ethan approached low, using the pump island as cover. He spotted dark smears on the concrete near the entrance—drag marks, footprints, something like a handprint.
Grace leaned slightly toward him. "Ethan…"
He held up two fingers—wait—and tilted his head.
There it was.
A sound from inside.
Not the dry clicking of teeth. Not the wet shuffle of something dead.
Voices.
Male voices. Quiet, but not whispering.
Ethan's mind flattened into risk math. Not infected. Not alone. Unknown weapons. Unknown temperament.
Grace's hand drifted again, protective at her stomach.
Ethan hated how often he was noticing that.
He leaned in toward the cracked window, just enough to catch the words.
"…told you there'd be more back here."
"…shut up. Just grab it. Grab everything."
A second voice, younger, breathy with excitement. "We should check the cooler—"
Then a third sound cut through them.
A muffled sob.
Grace stiffened. Her eyes went wide and sharp, and she mouthed, Someone's in there.
Ethan didn't move. He didn't rush the door. He didn't do the heroic thing.
He backed away from the window and pulled Grace behind the pump island, out of sight. His voice stayed low.
"How many?" Grace whispered.
"Two men," Ethan said. "Maybe more. And one person crying."
Grace's face tightened like she was trying not to say the obvious.
Ethan spoke it anyway, because pretending didn't help. "Could be a hostage. Could be bait."
Grace stared at him like she couldn't believe he'd even allow that possibility.
Ethan met her eyes. His were plain brown, unremarkable—until they hardened into something that didn't care what she wanted to be true.
"We don't help if it kills us," he said. "Not if we can't win."
Grace's breath came fast. "Ethan—"
"I'm not saying we leave," Ethan cut in, calm. "I'm saying we don't walk into a room blind. We don't play savior. We set it up so we win clean."
Grace swallowed, nodding reluctantly. She was scared. She was also angry. That was Grace—heart first, then spine.
Ethan glanced around the lot. Empty road. A few abandoned cars. The forest line not far away. A service alley behind the building that led to a back door—probably a stock room.
He spotted it: a dumpster tucked near the rear with a metal lid slightly open. A path of footprints—fresh—leading from it to the back door.
Ethan's eyes narrowed. They came through the back.
He pointed two fingers toward Grace's chest, then down—stay low. Grace crouched behind the pump, hugging her knees, flannel pooling around her thighs. Even like this, Ethan's brain registered the shape of her—hips, thighs, the way her tank top clung to her chest when she breathed through her nose to control the nausea.
He forced his attention away. Later. When safe.
Ethan slid along the building wall toward the rear, moving like he was trying not to disturb the air. He kept his rifle angled down, finger off the trigger. The back door was slightly ajar.
He didn't like that.
Doors that were ajar were invitations.
He eased closer and heard the voices again—closer now, more distinct.
"…stop crying, okay? You're making this harder."
A female voice came next, muffled and shaking. "Please… I won't— I won't tell anyone—"
Ethan's jaw tightened.
Then another sound made his stomach drop: the faint, wet shuffle from deeper inside the building.
Not one of the men. Not the girl.
Something else.
Ethan froze and listened.
The shuffle paused. A soft scrape against tile.
Then a low, almost curious grunt—human throat trying to make a sound it didn't understand anymore.
Ethan's pulse didn't spike. It narrowed. Focused.
They're not alone in there, he realized. And if they haven't realized it yet, they're about to.
He backed off a step and reached into his pocket, pulling out something small and stupid: a pebble.
He tossed it gently toward the dumpster lid.
Clang.
Not loud. But loud enough in a quiet world.
Inside, voices snapped.
"What was that?" one man hissed.
"Probably a raccoon," the other muttered, but his voice had a tremor.
Ethan moved to the side, staying in shadow.
The back door creaked open wider and a man stepped out—mid-thirties maybe, baseball cap, sleeveless shirt, arms thin and twitchy like he ran on caffeine and fear. He held a crowbar like it made him king.
He looked toward the dumpster.
Ethan didn't give him time to decide.
He stepped in close and slammed the flat of the crowbar man's wrist with the hatchet handle—hard, surgical. Bone popped. The crowbar clattered.
The man's mouth opened to shout.
Ethan drove his shoulder into the man's chest and pinned him against the wall, forearm across his throat. Not choking. Controlling.
"Don't," Ethan whispered in his ear, voice like gravel. "Make. A sound."
The man's eyes bulged, watering. His free hand clawed at Ethan's arm.
Ethan wasn't bigger than him in a dramatic way. He wasn't stronger in a superhero way. He was just trained, and calm, and willing to hurt someone quickly.
The man tried to twist and shout anyway.
Ethan didn't argue. He slammed the man's head back against the wall, once, twice—enough to make his body go loose.
He lowered him gently, almost respectfully, like putting down a heavy bag.
Then Ethan heard it—inside, the other man raising his voice.
"Who's there?"
And the girl sobbing harder.
Ethan swore under his breath.
Noise.
Inside, the wet shuffle turned into a faster scrape.
A thump against something. A hiss of breath.
Ethan stepped back to the door and pushed it open with his boot, fast and decisive now that the setup had changed.
The stock room smelled like old food and gasoline and something sour underneath it. Shelves loomed in rows, half-emptied. The overhead lights were off; the only illumination came from the front windows and the open door behind him.
To the left, a man stood near a doorway leading into the main store, holding a shotgun at waist height like he didn't really know how to use it. He looked at Ethan with surprise—then fear.
To the right, crumpled on the floor, was a young woman.
She was around their age—early twenties—wearing a dark green cardigan over a modest cream blouse, a knee-length denim skirt, and scuffed sneakers that didn't belong in the woods. A small cross hung at her throat. Her hair was dark and thick, pulled into a messy braid that had come loose from someone yanking it. Her cheeks were wet, and her eyes—large, brown, terrified—flicked between Ethan and the shotgun like she couldn't decide which was worse.
Even in panic and dust, Ethan's brain registered details the way it always did: the soft fullness of her chest under the blouse, noticeable but not exaggerated; hips that gave her skirt a feminine curve; thighs strong enough to suggest she wasn't fragile, just untrained for violence. The cardigan did nothing to hide that she had a real shape—soft in the right places, rounder at the hips, with a subtle curve to her butt when she shifted on the floor trying to scramble back.
Ethan forced his eyes back to the man with the shotgun.
"Drop it," Ethan said.
The man's face twisted. "You—who the hell are you—"
A sound cut him off.
From the doorway into the main store, something lunged.
A figure in a blood-smeared apron stumbled into view, arms out, jaw working, eyes empty. Its head snapped toward the noise like it was a compass needle.
The shotgun man yelled—pure panic—and swung the barrel toward it.
Ethan moved first.
He didn't shoot. He didn't want that noise in a small town.
He stepped across the line of fire and drove the hatchet into the infected's skull with a short, brutal motion. The body jerked, sagged, and Ethan ripped the blade free and struck again without thinking.
The infected hit the floor with a wet thud.
The girl let out a choked noise, half-scream, half-sob.
The shotgun man stared—frozen—then lifted the barrel toward Ethan.
That was the moment Ethan knew what kind of man this was.
Not a "we can talk" man.
A "shoot first because you're scared" man.
Ethan shifted to the side, using a shelf as cover, and his rifle came up—steady, fast, practiced without being flashy.
"Don't," Ethan warned, voice flat.
The man's hands shook. His eyes darted toward the front of the store, toward the broken windows, like he'd suddenly realized what loud choices cost.
Outside, from somewhere down the street, a distant answering sound floated on the wind.
A low, hungry grunt.
Then another.
Ethan didn't need a lecture on consequences. The town was giving them one.
The shotgun man swallowed hard.
His barrel dipped.
He set the shotgun down slowly, like he wasn't sure the ground deserved it.
Ethan didn't relax. He edged forward and kicked the shotgun away, out of reach.
The man's voice cracked. "We were just—she was—she said she was alone—"
"Shut up," Ethan said, because explanations didn't matter.
From the front of the store, a crash sounded—glass shifting, maybe a door bumping.
The girl on the floor looked at Ethan like he was an answer to a prayer she hadn't finished saying. Her lips trembled.
"Please," she whispered. "Please don't leave me."
Behind Ethan, boots crunched on concrete outside.
Grace's voice came, tight and shaking but controlled. "Ethan?"
Ethan didn't take his eyes off the man. "Back room. Now."
Grace appeared in the doorway a second later, flannel hanging open, gray tank top beneath it, her face pale. She took in the scene—infected on the floor, the shotgun, the girl—and her expression hardened into something older than fear.
Her gaze landed on the girl's cross necklace.
Then on the bruises on her wrist.
Grace's eyes went glassy with rage. "Oh my God."
The girl flinched like she expected Grace to blame her.
Grace didn't.
Grace moved straight to her, crouched, and put a steadying hand on her shoulder. "You're okay," she said, voice shaking. "You're okay. What's your name?"
The girl swallowed hard, tears spilling now. "Hannah," she whispered. "Hannah Reed."
Ethan watched it happen—the way Grace's compassion snapped into place like it was automatic, the way Hannah clung to it like drowning.
Ethan didn't feel noble.
He felt the clock ticking.
He heard another sound from the front of the store: a soft scrape, then a heavier thump.
More infected drawn by noise.
Ethan's eyes flicked to the shotgun man. "Get on your knees. Hands behind your head."
The man hesitated.
Ethan's expression didn't change. It didn't need to. His voice stayed calm. "Now."
The man dropped to his knees like his legs gave out.
Ethan moved to zip-tie him with cord from his pocket—quick, efficient, not dramatic—while Grace helped Hannah stand. Hannah's skirt was torn slightly at the hem, her cardigan sleeve stretched. Her blouse clung damply at her chest where she'd been crying hard, and Ethan's eyes caught the outline again—soft breasts pressed by fabric, the curve of her hips when she wobbled to her feet.
He looked away immediately, forcing his focus back to the front of the store.
Because romance didn't matter if they got trapped inside a building with hungry things and a town full of echoes.
Grace guided Hannah toward the back door, keeping her close.
Hannah clutched her cross like it was the only solid thing left in the world. "I didn't— I didn't do anything— I was just— I was at the church and—"
"Later," Ethan said, voice firm. Not cruel. Just prioritizing survival. "We talk when we're not about to die."
Hannah nodded rapidly, eyes wide, desperate to obey.
Outside, the afternoon light looked harsher. The haze made everything feel like a bad dream.
Ethan pushed the back door open wider and listened.
Down the street, a low, wandering chorus had started—scattered, not a horde yet, but moving toward the station like iron filings toward a magnet.
Ethan's jaw tightened.
"Move," he said.
Grace pulled Hannah along. Hannah stumbled once, and Grace steadied her. Grace's face pinched with nausea again—just for a second—before she swallowed it down and kept moving.
Ethan brought up the rear, dragging the zip-tied man out with them like baggage he didn't want but couldn't ignore yet.
He didn't feel like a good guy.
He felt like a man making choices.
And in the apocalypse, choices were the only thing that separated the living from the dead.
As they slipped behind the building toward the SUV, Hannah looked back at the gas station, trembling.
"I thought… I thought God would send someone," she whispered, almost ashamed.
Grace squeezed her hand. "He did."
Ethan didn't say anything.
He just listened to the sound of the town waking up behind them—soft grunts, scraping footsteps, the hungry pull of noise—and kept moving, because belief didn't get you out alive.
But discipline sometimes did.