Chapter 66
“Walter had good children. Whatever happened after I last saw them, remember that much. He kept them alive when a lot of people couldn’t,” Leonard said.
He turned south. Rachel watched until the road carried him beyond the tree line.
His walking stick struck the gravel in a steady rhythm, and his thin frame kept moving with stubborn purpose.
They left with more hope than Rachel had carried since the EMP and more fear than she could manage.
Hannah and Caleb had survived. Walter had protected them.
Those facts should’ve made the remaining miles easier, but Rachel kept pushing too fast. Her boots struck the gravel with sharp, impatient force, and her breathing shortened each time the road climbed.
Her side started aching within the first hour.
The pain warmed beneath her ribs and traveled along the scar as a warning.
She ignored it. Her legs trembled on the second incline, even though the slope should’ve been manageable before the infection left her weak.
She kept going until her balance slipped on the descent and Sophie caught her elbow.
“You’re done,” Sophie said.
“I’m fine,” Rachel said.
“You’re shaking. Your side hurts again. I can tell because you’re holding yourself stiff. Stop now.”
Rachel wanted to argue. The habit ran deep after weeks spent deciding when to move and when to rest. The words formed and died before they reached her mouth.
Sophie was right. Pretending otherwise would waste energy they couldn’t replace.
They stopped beside an abandoned roadside produce stand.
A plywood counter sat beneath a corrugated metal roof, and empty wooden crates lined the rear wall.
They sat behind the counter where the shadow gave them some cover from the afternoon sun.
Rachel’s legs trembled for another minute before they steadied.
“I hate this,” Rachel said.
“Collapsing twenty miles from Brenton would be an especially stupid way to finish the journey. Even for you,” Sophie said.
The bluntness caught Rachel off guard. She laughed despite the pain, a short sound that startled a bird from the nearby brush.
Sophie didn’t smile, but the tension around her eyes eased.
Rachel divided their remaining food with the same care she’d used since the Keller farm.
They ate slowly because eating too fast only made the hunger return sooner.
Sophie studied the map while she chewed and traced routes across the creased paper with one finger.
Rachel recognized nearly every town name.
Millerton. Denfield. The eastern service roads that connected to Brenton’s suburban neighborhoods.
She could have folded the map and navigated from memory, but Sophie kept it open between them, her attention moving across the distances with the same focus she had brought to railroad hazards and infected wounds.
The shelter signs they had passed had been crossed out.
Rachel counted three within two miles. Each carried a different warning in hurried handwriting.
No water. Burned. Empty. Keep moving. Handwritten notices pointed travelers toward farms and settlements farther west, proof that the old centers of community had shifted.
Some messages were neat and almost official.
Others were scrawled in haste, with crowded letters that looked as if the writer had been forced to leave before finishing.
None of the signs mentioned Brenton as a destination. The arrows pointed away from the city, not toward it. The reversal was so consistent that Rachel stopped noticing individual messages and began reading the pattern they created. Brenton had emptied from the center outward.
By evening, Rachel could identify the surrounding hills without the map.
The eastern ridge rose in a silhouette she had driven past hundreds of times during morning commutes.
Beyond it, the water tower marked the service road that connected to her neighborhood.
Home was close enough that tomorrow’s roads belonged to memories rather than directions.
She knew which intersections led to which streets.
She knew where the pavement typically ended and the gravel began.
Walter had stayed in Brenton for weeks after the EMP.
He had kept Hannah and Caleb alive through conditions severe enough to empty most of the city.
He had helped neighbors, repaired manual systems, and resisted leaving as long as he could.
Then he took both children and went somewhere Rachel couldn’t follow without first reaching the house.
He had stayed long enough to know Rachel might return.
He would’ve assumed she was alive until there was proof she wasn’t.
Walter didn’t abandon hope easily. Something had changed his mind.
Something had made leaving safer than waiting, serious enough to override the one certainty that should’ve kept him in place.
Rachel would search for her children at the only address she knew.
She wouldn’t understand what had changed until she reached home.
The answer waited in a house she could no longer assume was occupied.
It waited on streets that carried familiar names, even though Leonard’s account had made them feel strange.
Rachel was still crossing that distance, one mile at a time.
Sophie repacked the map and secured both water bottles.
She moved with the efficient rhythm she’d learned on the road, each motion deliberate and practiced.
She hadn’t asked about Walter, Hannah, or Caleb since Leonard left.
The silence wasn’t avoidance. It was Sophie giving Rachel room to carry what she needed to carry without having to explain it out loud.
They would reach Brenton the next day if Rachel’s body cooperated, and the roads stayed clear.
The distance had shrunk from impossible to manageable, from hundreds of miles to hours of walking.
Rachel should’ve felt relief. Instead, one question pressed hard against her chest, and its answer would change everything she’d walked toward since the highway turned dark and silent beneath her dead SUV.
Whatever made Walter leave waited at the end of the road.