Arty let the ute roll another few metres before easing it onto the shoulder, keeping the engine running while he studied the service station through the windscreen.
From this distance it looked ordinary enough in the way abandoned places often did at first glance, almost as if normal routine had simply paused mid-breath and would resume the moment the right person stepped back into frame.
Two cars sat crooked near the bowsers, one with the driver's door hanging open, the other with its rear hatch lifted high enough to expose half a dozen grocery bags still stacked inside.
A faded sandwich board had tipped onto its side near the entrance, the fluorescent sign above the awning still buzzed weakly, one corner flickering hard enough to make the light stutter across the forecourt.
The message on his phone sat there like a splinter under the skin.
Too many inside.
His eyes moved across the station again, slower this time, tracing possible lines of movement.
Front doors, side windows, service lane on the left, the small fenced storage yard out the back, he couldn't see anyone, that meant very little now.
He picked up the phone and stared at the blank sender line, waiting for more, nothing came.
"Helpful when they feel like it," he murmured, tossing the phone onto the passenger seat. "That's not suspicious at all."
His gaze shifted to the fuel gauge, just under half a tank, enough to move, not enough to waste.
The service station represented everything he needed and everything that could kill him all at once.
Fuel, water, shelf food, basic tools, maybe information, if the radios or the screens inside still worked. It also represented enclosed space, blind corners, reflective glass.
Not to mention, narrow aisles, and whatever "too many" actually translated to once he was standing in the middle of it.
Arty leaned back slightly in the seat and let the problem settle into shape, the first life had killed him because he stayed where he shouldn't.
This one could kill him because he reached too early for what he wanted, that distinction mattered.
He took the wrench off the passenger seat, held it for a second, then set it across his lap while he scanned the area one more time.
Beyond the station, the road ran toward town in a shallow descent lined with scattered houses, a tyre shop, a low brick mechanics shed, and a cluster of small commercial buildings further in.
Nothing obvious moved there from where he sat, the silence itself had become suspicious enough that he no longer treated it as comfort.
A figure appeared near the far side of the station, shuffling out from between the pumps and the bins, half-obscured by the angle of the parked hatchback.
It didn't move with urgency at first, only drifted a few steps before stopping again, its head hanging or rather lolling slightly forward, a second shape followed behind it, then a third.
Arty's jaw tightened.
"So that's what too many means."
He didn't need exact numbers, he needed probability, probability said the station was already compromised badly enough that entering it alone with a wrench was just another version of the same mistake in different clothes.
He tapped the steering wheel once with his thumb, thinking.
The food in the back of the hatchback tempted him more than the station itself, grocery bags meant someone had made it far enough to collect supplies before things fell apart.
That meant bottled water, canned food, maybe batteries, maybe first aid, the problem was the hatchback sat inside the same kill zone as the pumps and the station entrance.
All of it open enough to look manageable right up until movement came from the wrong angle, is eyes drifted left toward the service lane.
There was room there, not much, but enough for the ute to angle in and out if he needed a fast exit. The line of sight into the forecourt would improve from that side too, he'd be closer, more committed, less blind.
He made the decision not because it was safe, but because it was better than guessing from the road.
The ute rolled forward slowly, tyres crunching over gravel as he eased into the service lane and brought the station into a cleaner angle through the windscreen.
Up close the details sharpened in all the worst ways, smears on the glass near the entrance, blood, or something near enough to it, across the tiled threshold.
A child's drink bottle lying near the side wall, one shoe under the nearest bowser, the shapes he had seen before were clearer now too.
Four of them at least, maybe five if the one slumped near the bin enclosure was still capable of moving, two stood near the entrance, one had wandered between the cars.
Another kept drifting toward the road as if pulled by passing sound and then circling back when nothing came of it.
No clean lane. No quiet grab and leave.
His phone buzzed again.
He looked down.
Back shed. One only.
Arty stared at the screen.
Then toward the rear storage yard.
A chain-link gate stood half open behind the main building. Beyond it sat a narrow yard with two industrial bins, a caged gas bottle rack, and a small corrugated storage shed built onto the back wall.
From where he sat now, most of the yard remained hidden, he could only see enough to know it existed and that the gate had not been shut properly.
"One only," he said quietly.
That could mean a single infected inside, it could mean a single person alive, it could mean nothing worth trusting, his hand tightened around the wrench.
"You are either helping me," he muttered toward the phone, "or setting me up beautifully."
He left the ute idling and opened the door with deliberate care, stepping out low and quiet enough that the nearest shape in the forecourt didn't immediately react.
Heat hit him harder now that he was outside, the air carrying stale fuel, hot metal, and something sweet-rotten underneath it that he didn't want to name.
He closed the door without slamming it and moved along the service lane toward the rear gate, every step placed with the kind of attention he usually reserved for unstable ladders and angry livestock.
The first zombie noticed him when he was halfway there, its head snapped up, then it turned towards him.
The others followed a second later, not all at once, but one by one as if the signal of his existence had to travel through them rather than strike them equally.
No shouting, no hesitation, just movement.
Arty accelerated immediately, not into a sprint but into that controlled burst of speed that came from understanding exactly how much time he had just lost.
He slipped through the half-open rear gate, turned sharply, and shoved it inward with both hands.
The chain screeched against metal as the gate swung enough to narrow the gap. It didn't latch. He didn't need it to. He needed delay.
The first impact hit from the other side almost instantly, rattling the chain-link hard enough to vibrate through his palms.
"Good," he said under his breath, already moving. "Use the door."
The rear yard was tighter than it had looked from outside, hemmed in by brick wall on one side and the corrugated shed on the other.
A pallet of drink crates sat half-collapsed in one corner, a stack of empty milk crates, a rusting trolley, too much clutter to fight cleanly in, but enough obstacles to slow something mindless.
He reached the shed door and paused, locked, of course it was.
He looked down, spotted a brick wedge near the threshold, as he pulled it free and followed it up driving the end of the wrench into the lock housing.
The metal gave with a crack louder than he wanted, behind him the gate shrieked again under another hit.
"One only," he muttered, levering harder until the mechanism tore loose. "That better mean one."
The door jerked inward.
Cooler air met him first, then darkness and the stale smell of cardboard, sugar syrup, old dust, and trapped heat. He stepped inside and gave his eyes half a second to adjust.
A shape rose from behind a stack of cartons.
Not a mindless zombie grunt like outside.
A girl.
Late teens, maybe twenty at most, hair tied back in a loose knot that had mostly fallen apart, one hand clutching a tyre iron.
Her other hand braced against the shelf as if she'd been crouched for a long time and her legs hadn't agreed to move properly when she needed them to.
Her face had gone pale enough that the freckles stood out hard across her nose, and for one dangerous instant both of them looked ready to attack the other simply to avoid being attacked first.
Arty held up his empty hand.
"Alive," he said quickly. "Still alive."
Her eyes flicked over him, taking in the blood on his shirt, the wrench, the broken lock, the noise building outside.
"Prove it," she snapped.
Reasonable.
Arty almost laughed at that, except the timing was too filthy to support the instinct.
"If I wasn't, I'd have skipped introductions."
Another slam hit the gate outside. Her eyes shifted toward the sound, then back to him.
"You came through the rear?"
"Yes."
"How many?"
"At least four on the front. More if the road's feeding them in."
Her grip on the tyre iron tightened. "There are two more in the cool room and one behind the counter."
"Alive?"
"Were, last time I checked."
That answer landed badly.
Arty's mind moved fast. Three living people somewhere in the building. Four or more infected out front. More movement on the roads. One ute. Half a tank. Very little time.
"What's your name?"
"Leah."
"I'm Arty."
She nodded once, sharp and minimal, the kind of movement that said names weren't the priority but information still mattered. He respected that.
"What's in here that matters?" he asked.
"Water, snack stock, a few tools, cleaning stuff, some cash in the office if the till was emptied before they ran." Her gaze sharpened slightly. "Fuel pump controls are inside too."
That mattered.
Everything mattered.
A metallic shriek ripped through the yard outside, followed by the heavier, uglier sound of the chain-link gate finally giving enough that one body at least had started pushing through.
Leah heard it too.
"That gate's gone."
"Was never really there to begin with, it was only to buy me some time." Arty said.
A shape hit the outer wall of the shed hard enough to make the entire structure shudder, dust drifted from the rafters, Leah flinched once, then steadied.
Arty looked around quickly, the shed had one inner door leading into the service station proper, no windows worth using, no obvious rear exit. Staying here meant getting pinned. Going forward meant entering a building already containing both possible survivors and definite threats.
His brain sorted the options, discarded three bad ones, and settled on the least terrible.
"We move through," he said. "Fast. Grab what matters, get the others if they're still good. Leave before the front fills."
Leah hesitated just long enough to prove she was thinking rather than freezing. "You have a car?"
"Ute."
"Fuel?"
"Enough if I don't waste it."
Another impact hit. Closer this time. Something scraped along the corrugated wall beside them with the ugly insistence of a body that had discovered resistance and objected to it.
Leah nodded once.
"Then we don't stay."
Arty moved to the inner door and tested it, unlocked, he opened it a fraction and peered into the dim service corridor beyond.
No immediate movement, the fluorescent strip overhead buzzed weakly, washing everything in pale, sick light that made even the intact surfaces look contaminated.
The corridor led to the office on the right, the cool room further down, and the main retail floor beyond that.
He could hear it now, the dull, dragging shuffle from the front area, the sound of things moving without caution among shelves and dropped stock.
Leah stepped in close enough that he could keep his voice low.
"The cool room's at the end. Counter is through the shop. Office is first door right."
"You know if they've turned?"
She swallowed once before answering. "No."
"Fair enough." Arty whispered.
That was the problem with uncertainty, it occupied exactly as much space as hope while being twice the hazard.
Arty set his jaw and opened the door wider.
"Then we assume they have until proven otherwise."
He stepped into the corridor first, wrench up, listening hard enough to hear both his own breathing and hers behind him.
The office door stood half ajar, beyond it he could see a chair overturned and papers scattered across the floor.
The corridor light flickered once, steadied, then dipped again as something thudded against the shed wall behind them.
No more time, he moved to the office and looked in, no infected, no people either.
The till drawer sat open on the desk beside the monitor, cash trays half emptied but not cleanly.
Someone had grabbed in haste, notes remained, no did coins and a keyring and a set of fuel cards clipped to a plastic tag.
Arty snatched the cards first, then the notes, folding them into his pocket without counting.
Leah stepped past him to the storage cupboard and came back with two bottles of water and a small first aid kit shoved under one arm.
"Useful enough," she said.
"Definitely, take it." Arty responded.
A low moan rolled down the corridor from the retail floor, not a voice, not anymore.
Leah went still.
Arty didn't.
He stepped back into the corridor and moved toward the cool room, every nerve along his spine tightening as the sound from the front shifted from diffuse movement to converging interest.
They had been noticed.
The cool room door stood shut.
Arty reached for the handle, then stopped.
On the floor beneath it, half hidden in the flickering light, was a smear of blood drawn outward rather than inward.
His eyes narrowed.
Leah saw it a second later.
"Oh no."
Something hit the other side of the door.
Once.
Hard.
Arty tightened his grip on the wrench.
The station was closing around them faster than he'd planned, and for the first time since leaving the house, he felt the old shape of the trap returning, not identical, but familiar enough to make his pulse harden.
The road had not been the danger.
The destination was.
"Back up," he said quietly.
From the retail floor, somewhere beyond the shelves and counter, glass shattered.
Then someone screamed.