The street was a landscape of chaos. A car had crashed into a fire hydrant, and water was spraying high into the air in a clean, pulsing arc. The water mixed with the gray smoke rolling from the roof of a burning house two doors down. The pop and crackle of the flames was a steady rhythm under the closer, sharper sounds of distant screams and breaking glass. The dead were everywhere. Some lay still on the manicured lawns, twisted into unnatural positions. Others moved with that terrible, twitching purpose, their heads snapping toward any sign of life.
Quinn scanned the scene, his Marine training taking over completely. He was not a grieving brother or a terrified uncle. He was a point man on a patrol through hostile territory. He saw the street not as a street, but as a series of cover points and kill zones. He saw a man with a shotgun fire twice from a second-story window before being pulled back inside by something unseen. He saw a group of three infected feasting on a fallen figure near a mailbox. He saw a woman run from her front door only to be cut down by a runner who appeared from behind a hedge. This was not a fight. It was a harvest.
"We have to move," he said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion.
Sarah leaned heavily against him, her face pale and beaded with sweat. Her left arm was held tight against her body, the blood now a dark, ugly stain that had soaked her sleeve from wrist to elbow. She was trying to be strong, but each step was a visible effort.
"Mommy, I'm scared," Lily whimpered, clinging to Sarah's leg. The little girl was in a state of deep shock, her eyes wide and unblinking as she took in the horrors around her.
"I know, baby," Sarah whispered, her voice strained. "We just have to keep walking. Stay close to Uncle Quinn."
Quinn pointed with the iron poker. "Stay low. Keep to the cars," he instructed. "We move from that blue sedan to the white truck. Then to the hedge by the driveway. Don't run unless I say so. Understand?"
Sarah nodded, her jaw tight with pain.
He took the lead, poker held ready in a two-handed grip. He moved in a half-crouch, his eyes scanning every shadow, every doorway, every parked car. They shuffled from the relative cover of one vehicle to the next. The world was a series of short, terrifying sprints across open ground. Sarah stumbled, her breath coming in ragged gasps that were almost sobs. Quinn pulled her up without a word, half-carrying her for a few feet before finding their next spot of cover.
They huddled behind a large, overturned delivery truck, its wheels pointing toward the sky. Peeking through the gap between the axles, Quinn watched a scene unfold that made his stomach clench. A family—a man, a woman, and two teenage kids—piled into a minivan, the same model as Sarah's had been. The engine roared to life. For a second, Quinn felt a flicker of hope for them.
Then the infected came.
They swarmed the van from all sides, drawn by the loud noise of the engine. They threw themselves against the windows, their hands clawing at the glass, leaving bloody streaks. The driver panicked. He stomped on the gas. The van lurched forward, crashing into a parked car, then swerved violently and hit a telephone pole with a loud crunch of metal. The engine died. The infected smashed the windows with their bare fists and pulled the screaming family out, one by one.
Quinn forced himself to look away. He could not afford the distraction. He could not afford the horror. He had to focus on his own family, on the two lives that now depended entirely on him.
"Now," he whispered, seeing a momentary gap in the roaming infected on their side of the street. "To that brick wall. Go!"
They ran. Sarah cried out as her feet tangled, and she almost went down, but Quinn caught her arm, pulling her along. They pressed themselves against the rough, cold brick of a garden wall, gasping for air. The sounds of the attack on the minivan faded behind them, replaced by the low, guttural sounds of feeding.
It was a near-miss. As they huddled behind the wall, a small horde of five infected shuffled past on the street, not ten feet away from them. They were drawn by some distant sound to the east, their heads all turning in unison like a flock of birds sensing a change in the wind. Quinn held his breath, placing a hand over Lily's mouth to stifle a whimper. The creatures passed by without noticing them, their feet scraping on the pavement in a dry, rustling rhythm.
When they were gone, Quinn looked at Sarah. Her condition had worsened dramatically in the last fifteen minutes. Her skin was clammy, yet her face was flushed with a feverish heat. Her breathing was shallow, and a fine tremor ran through her body.
He gently peeled back the torn, bloody fabric of her sleeve. The wound was bad. It was not a scratch. It was a deep, ragged bite mark, the flesh torn and already starting to discolor to a sickly purple around the edges. A network of dark, thread-like veins was beginning to spread from the wound up her arm, a visible map of the infection's progress.
"It's getting cold," she mumbled, her teeth chattering despite the fever that was clearly burning her up from the inside.
Quinn knew the signs. He had seen infections like this before, in field hospitals overseas. Sepsis. Toxic shock. But this was faster. Much faster. Whatever was in that bite was working its way through her system with unnatural speed.
He pressed his hand against her forehead. She was burning up. He looked into her eyes and saw they were glassy, her pupils dilated and slow to react to the light. She was losing the fight.
They could not stay out here. The open street was a death sentence. Every step they took, Sarah grew weaker. Every moment they were exposed, the risk of being spotted grew. They needed shelter. Real shelter. Not just a car or a wall to hide behind for a few minutes. They needed a place with four solid walls, a lockable door, and a roof. They needed it now.
His eyes scanned the street, past the wreckage and the bodies. Most houses had broken windows or open doors, clear signs they were already compromised. Then he saw it. Three houses down on the opposite side of the street. A two-story brick house with dark, intact windows and a heavy wooden front door that was firmly shut. There were no signs of forced entry, no bodies on the lawn. It looked quiet. Secure.
It was a gamble. The house could be a trap. It could be full of infected, waiting silently inside for the sound of a living person. But staying out on the street was not a gamble. It was a certainty. It was death.
"There," he said, pointing with the poker. "That house. The brick one. We're going inside."
Sarah looked at the house, her gaze unfocused. Then she looked back at him. In her fever-hazed eyes, he saw a flicker of understanding. She knew what was happening to her. She knew they were running out of time.
She nodded weakly. "Okay."
Quinn squared his shoulders, the weight of their desperate situation settling on him like a physical burden. He had to get them there. He had to get his sister and his niece out of the nightmare on the street and into the sanctuary of that house. Even if it was just for a little while. Even if it was just to give Sarah a place to lie down. A place to be safe for her last few hours.