9. Silent Past #3
Jay swept his gaze along the tree line. "Then we stay silent. Rotate watch, same order as last night."
Cara gave a small nod. "I'll take second."
Jay reached for her hand briefly, a silent reassurance passed between them, before letting go.
Behind them, Josie wrapped her arms around herself and stared into the darkening trees.
"Is it always like this?" she asked.
Seth glanced over at her. "Only on the good nights."
That earned a slight smile—the first he'd seen from her since morning.
Jay exhaled, his breath steaming in the cold air. "All right let’s settle in. No fires tonight unfortunately.”
The group moved to unload sleeping gear from the SUVs, but Seth paused, turning slowly back toward the woods.
He couldn't say why. He saw nothing. Heard nothing.
But something was off, the birds were still calling, yet the sounds felt strangely off, as if the forest were hidding secrets.
The night settled, heavy and still—the kind of quiet that made Seth's skin itch.
He sat on the hood of Beast, rifle across his lap, eyes methodically sweeping the tree line.
The others slept inside the vehicles: Jay and Cara in one, Josie and Layla bundled in sleeping bags in the back of the other.
Only the faint crackle of cooling metal and the occasional sigh of wind through dead branches kept him company.
A pale crescent moon offered just enough light to make everything look wrong.
Seth rubbed the grit from his eyes. Exhaustion pulled at him, but watch duty was the one thing he could always do, the one thing he still owed them.
A shape moved.
Barely a flicker at first—a shift in the shadows, then a staggering lurch from behind an abandoned pickup twenty yards out.
Seth froze.
Another step.
Then another.
A wet, rattling breath carried across the clearing.
An infected. Upright. Barely, but moving.
He raised the rifle to his shoulder, controlled his breathing.
The sick man's head snapped towards him with the sudden, jerking precision of a predator sensing prey.
It lurched forward with a sound that had stopped being human a long time ago.
Its spine twisted unnaturally with each step, tendons visible through rotting flesh, fingers curled into rigid claws.
Then the stench reached him something that didn't belong in anything still breathing.
Seth's finger squeezed the trigger.
CRACK.
The shot split the night. The sick man's head burst apart in a mist of black, and the body crumpled where it stood, finally motionless.
Inside the SUV, Josie jolted upright with a strangled cry. Layla shrieked, a sharp, terrified sound that cut through the ringing in his ears.
"Fuck," Seth muttered, adrenaline still pouring through his veins. Jay's voice called out from the other vehicle, sharp with alarm. Seth barked back that it had only been an infected.
The door opened a moment later anyway. Josie stepped out, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, eyes wide with the residue of sleep and fear.
"You okay?" Seth asked, lowering the rifle.
She nodded shakily. "I heard the shot. Is it—?"
"Handled." His voice was calm and measured, betraying none of the adrenaline still raging through him. "One of the sick wandered too close. He's down."
Josie moved closer, hugging the blanket tight against the cold. The moonlight caught the exhaustion in her face, the worry etched into the lines around her mouth as she stared toward the crumpled shape at the edge of the clearing.
"It doesn't make sense," she whispered, her voice strained.
"What doesn't?" Seth asked, keeping his eyes on the tree line.
"The decay. It's too advanced. It shouldn't be …this… just gone." She shook her head. "Why are some of them still walking?"
Seth leaned back against the bumper, his rifle still in his hands. "I saw a lot of strange things overseas," he said, "but nothing like this. It doesn't affect everyone the same way. Some burn out fast, and some just keep walking."
Josie frowned, considering his words. "Or maybe it attacks the nervous system at different rates."
"Could be. Some drop and stiffen up right away. The walkers, though..." He let out a long breath. "They're like fever zombies. Not dead, just cooked from the inside out, still running on whatever's left."
Josie shivered. "That's exactly what it looks like."
They stood in the silence that followed, the wind carrying a faint copper scent of blood across the clearing.
Seth glanced at her. "Sorry it woke you."
"I wasn't really sleeping," she admitted. "Not well, anyway." She hesitated, then stepped closer, her voice dropping. "Does it ever get easier? Killing them?"
Seth looked at the dead man for a long moment, then back at her. "No," he said. "But it its harder to let them get close to the people you're responsible for."
Her breath caught slightly, understanding exactly what—and who—he meant.
"You're keeping us safe," she said.
"Trying to."
"And..." She swallowed, searching for the words. "Thank you. For last night. And for this."
Seth nodded once, his eyes flickering to Layla's tiny silhouette in the SUV window. "She's not going to end up like the others," he said, his voice low but unwavering.
Josie didn't push for details. She didn't need to—the weight behind those final words told her everything, and she recognized his grief because it was the same one she carried.
Instead of retreating to the warmth of the SUV, she lowered herself onto the bumper beside him, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders.
"Mind if I sit with you a little while?" she asked.
Seth surprised himself by answering, "Sure."
And together, beneath the thin light of the crescent moon, they kept watch—two survivors staring out into a world gone feral, finding an uneasy comfort in no longer facing it alone.