Chapter 2 Travis
two
Travis
The attack site tells a story I've seen before.
I walk the perimeter of the massacre. This was a coordinated attack.
The vehicles were disabled first—tires shot out, engine blocks hit with precision rounds that speak to training, to planning, to someone who knows exactly where to aim.
Then, systematic elimination of the crew, working from the outside in, cutting off escape routes before moving to close quarters.
A handful of people who woke up yesterday morning thinking they'd be home in a few days. Now they're cooling meat on a mountain road, and if we don't move them, the zombies will find them by nightfall.
They wanted the supplies, which means they wanted them badly enough to plan this. To scout the route, choose the ambush point, and bring enough people to guarantee success. This wasn't desperation or opportunity. This was strategic.
This is the same signature Ruby and Mayson have been tracking through the security network. The same organized raiders are hitting medical convoys across the territory. Someone's building an operation out there, and they're getting better at it.
Eric crouches beside a burnt-out trailer, his young face grim beneath road dust. At nineteen, he's seen more death than anyone should, but it still hits him. I can see it in the way his jaw tightens, the way he won't look directly at the bodies.
"Seven dead total. Looks like they held out for a while."
"They did." I study the bullet casings, the defensive positions, the way bodies fell in patterns that suggest coordinated fire. "These were good people. Trained. They knew what they were doing."
"Didn't help."
No. It didn't.
Almost a day later, we found their sole survivor. She’s getting patched up right now, but I can’t shake the memory of her eyes burning into mine.
I think about Hazel's grip on my wrist. The desperate strength in her fever-glazed eyes. They're waiting for us to come home, she said. Not me. Us.
She carried that burden through the night on an infected wound.
Through the darkness, evading any raiders still in the area, pushing through fever and pain because she promised someone she'd finish the delivery.
Because the people she loved died protecting those supplies and she couldn't let that be meaningless.
Survivor's guilt. I know it intimately. Know the way it sits in your chest like a stone, the way it makes every breath feel like betrayal.
"We're diverting to Old Pines," I tell the crew when I return to the ATVs. "Full delivery escort."
Ken and Patricia exchange glances from their shared vehicle.
They've been married thirty years, met at a county fair, survived the outbreak together, and joined my crew six months ago.
They communicate in looks the way long-married couples do, whole conversations happening in the space between heartbeats.
"That's three days out of our way," Ken points out. Not argumentative, just factual. Ken's always factual. It's what makes him reliable. "Ruby's expecting us at Hope Tower by week's end."
"Ruby will understand." I watch Jess finishing Hazel's first aid. "These supplies are medical. Old Pines has been waiting months. And if the raiders who hit her convoy are still active in this area..."
"They'll be hunting for the survivor," Eric finishes, understanding dawning. "She's a loose end."
"She's a person." My voice comes out sharp, and I see Ken's eyebrows rise slightly. "A person who walked all night on an infected wound to finish a delivery for her dead friends. We're helping her."
Nobody argues after that.
We rig a stretcher behind my ATV, cushioned with spare blankets from our emergency stores. Hazel is unconscious through most of the first day, which is probably a mercy. Jess checks on her every hour, adjusting fluids, monitoring the fever that's still burning too high.
"She'll make it," Jess tells me that evening as we set up camp. The sun is setting behind the mountains, painting the sky in shades of gold and blood. "Tough one. Most people would've collapsed hours earlier with that infection spreading."
"Most people would've dropped the supplies."
"Yeah." Jess watches me watching Hazel's sleeping form. Something knowing in her expression. "That too."
I assign myself the first watch, which nobody questions.
The crew knows I don't sleep well. I haven't since Alaska, since the settlement we couldn't save.
Thirty people died because we were twelve hours too late.
Weather delays, equipment failure, bad intel.
A thousand decisions that seemed right at the time and added up to disaster.
I've replayed those decisions a thousand times. Changed nothing. The outcome stays the same no matter how I rearrange the variables.
Sometimes survival is just luck.
Around midnight, Hazel stirs. I move to her side, ready to call Jess, but her eyes focus on me with surprising clarity, and she shakes her head slightly.
"Water?"
I help her drink, supporting her head with one hand. She's still too pale, skin almost translucent in the firelight, but the fever-flush has faded. The antibiotics are working.
"Your crew," she says quietly. "They seem solid."
"They are. We've been through enough together to trust each other completely." I settle back against a tree, keeping my voice low so we don't wake the others. "We've been running routes together for a year. Since the Alaska expedition."
"I heard about that." She pushes herself up slightly, wincing at the movement. "You connected a dozen remote settlements in one summer. People talk about it like you're some kind of legend."
"Thirteen settlements." The number carries weight. "And we lost one. Got there too late."
Her eyes hold mine in the firelight, understanding there. Not pity—understanding. There's a difference.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I've made peace with it." Mostly. "What I learned is that isolation kills as surely as raiders. Connection keeps us human. That's why we do what we do—link communities, share information, prove that cooperation beats going it alone."
"And that's why you're helping me? Connection?"
"Partly." I look away, toward the treeline where shadows dance with firelight. "Also, because your crew died protecting those supplies, and finishing their mission matters. It honors them."
Hazel is quiet for a long moment. The fire crackles. Somewhere distant, an owl calls.
"I was on watch," she finally says. "When the ambush hit."
"I figured."
"I should have seen them coming."
"Ambushes are designed so you can't see them coming. That's what makes them ambushes."
"That's too easy."
"No. It's just true." I meet her eyes again. "Get some sleep, Hazel. We've got two more days of travel, and you need to heal."
She doesn't argue, which tells me how exhausted she still is. Within minutes, her breathing evens out, and I go back to watching the darkness.
I don't tell her the other reason I'm helping. The one I can barely admit to myself.
When I first saw her lying on that road, fierce even in collapse, still fighting, it made me think of thines I haven’t in a long time. Something I've been avoiding for a year. Connection is good for communities. For individuals, it's dangerous.
Caring about someone makes you vulnerable. Makes every decision harder.
I've been avoiding that complication deliberately.
But watching Hazel Cooper refuse to give up, refuse to drop her burden even when her body was failing... I recognized that stubbornness. Understood it in my bones.
And I wanted to know more.
That's the most dangerous thought I've had in months.