4. The Road #3
He sat up and stretched, his joints cracking in the quiet. For a moment, they both sat there listening to the soft tick of sleet melting on the hood. Then Sawyer reached for his jacket and nodded toward the field.
“I need to take a leak,” he said. “I’m sure you do, too. Stay within sight of the truck, and make it quick, okay?”
Addy nodded, pushing open her door. The hinges squealed loudly in the early morning calm, the sound slicing through the stillness. She winced, glancing instinctively over her shoulder before slipping out into the cold.
The air bit at her face, sharp and clean after a night of frost. She moved quickly behind one of the large storage containers, the gravel crunching under her boots, her breath puffing in small white clouds.
The quiet was heavy, too heavy; and she caught herself scanning the horizon the way Sawyer always did.
She had just started to stand when something shifted at the edge of her vision.
Movement.
Her eyes snapped toward it, a figure stumbling from the open doors of a barn across the lot.
The shape moved unevenly, dragging one leg, its head lolling slightly as it walked.
Addy froze, confusion slicing through her grogginess.
For a second, she thought it might be another survivor.
Then she saw the way it moved—jerky, broken, like the body didn’t quite remember how to be alive.
It looked like death itself.
The person, if it still was a person, turned toward her. Even across the distance, Addy could see its skin was gray and slack, its mouth moving as if trying to form words. A sound came next, a wet, rasping plea carried faintly on the wind.
“Help… please…”
Her throat closed. She took a step back, heart slamming against her ribs. The thing’s head twitched sharply at the movement, and it began to shuffle faster—arms out, reaching.
“Sawyer!” Addy screamed, spinning on her heel and sprinting for the truck.
Gravel flew under her boots. The cold air burned her lungs. She didn’t look back.
Sawyer was already halfway out of the cab when she reached him, his eyes wide, scanning the horizon behind her. “Get in!” he barked.
She stumbled into the passenger seat, fumbling with the door as Sawyer slammed it shut and threw the truck into gear.
The tires skidded, spitting gravel behind them as they tore out of the lot.
Addy looked over her shoulder through the rear window just long enough to see the figure still coming, slow but relentless, its movements disjointed and wrong.
Sawyer didn’t say a word until the barn and the lot were far behind them, just a blur in the frost-tinted distance. His jaw was set, his hands tight on the wheel.
Addy’s breath came fast and shallow, her whole body trembling. “That, what was that?” she finally managed, her voice thin.
Sawyer didn’t answer right away. His gaze stayed fixed on the road, but when he spoke, his tone was low and grim.
“Whatever it was,” he said, “we don’t want to find out what happens if it gets close.”
Addy fixed her eyes on the road ahead, trying to breathe evenly, but her stomach twisted tighter with every mile. The world outside the window was a blur of gray fields and skeletal trees, and she clung to that motion, anything to keep from replaying what she’d just seen.
Her throat burned. She swallowed hard, but it didn’t help.
The image was seared into her mind: that thing stumbling out of the barn, skin slack and gray, eyes clouded over but still aware in some awful, half-living way.
Up until now, the horror had been distant, something she could smell, something she could imagine behind sealed walls. But now she had seen it.
And it was worse than anything her mind could have invented.
Whatever the virus did, it didn’t just kill—it hollowed people out, leaving them moving, breathing, begging, long after life had already left them. It ate them from the inside out, and the thought made bile rise in her throat.
She pressed her hand to her mouth. “I’m—” Her voice cracked. “I’m going to puke.”
Sawyer didn’t hesitate. He swerved the truck onto the shoulder, the tires crunching over gravel and frost. Before the vehicle had even come to a full stop, Addy shoved the door open and stumbled out, barely making it a few feet before she fell to her knees and retched.
There was nothing left in her stomach; she hadn’t eaten since the morning before—but her body didn’t seem to care. Each dry heave wracked through her like a violent shudder, tearing at her ribs, her throat raw and burning. The cold air stung her eyes and made them water.
She felt a shadow fall beside her, Sawyer, his boots crunching softly on the frozen ground. He didn’t speak, just crouched down and held out a bottle of water.
“Here,” he said quietly. “Sip. Don’t chug it.”
Addy took it with shaking hands and rinsed her mouth, the cold water stinging as it hit her throat. She spat into the dirt, then took another small drink.
“Here,” Sawyer said again, offering her something else: an opened strip of beef jerky, rough and salty-smelling. “Eat a little. It’ll help your stomach settle.”
She hesitated, then tore off a small bite.
The salt hit her tongue, sharp and grounding.
Her mouth watered instantly, and for a second, she thought she might cry from the simple, stupid relief of flavor.
She chewed slowly, forcing herself to swallow, and let out a small, shaky sound, half laugh, half groan.
It tasted so good.
Sawyer stood nearby, keeping watch while she ate, his gaze fixed on the road behind them. The early morning light caught on the edges of his dark hair, outlining his profile in a faint silver glow.
“Sorry,” Addy muttered after a moment, her voice hoarse. “I just… I didn’t think it would get to me like that.”
Sawyer didn’t look at her, but his voice was steady when he replied. “It gets to everyone. The first time you see what it really does to people… it’s not something you can just walk away from.”
He glanced down at her then, his expression unreadable but not unkind. “You did fine. You kept moving. That’s what matters.”
Addy nodded faintly, staring down at the dirt. The jerky sat heavy in her stomach, but it was better than the emptiness.
After a long moment, Sawyer tilted his head toward the truck. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve got daylight, and I don’t want to waste it. The longer we’re out here, the more we risk running into… whatever that was again.”
Addy stood slowly, brushing off her hands, her legs trembling but steady enough to carry her back to the truck. She climbed in, shut the door, and let out a shaky breath.
As Sawyer started the engine again, she kept her eyes forward. The world was still cold and broken, but for the first time, she felt the fragile thread of determination stir in her chest.
She wasn’t sure where they were going, or what they would find, but she knew one thing for certain.
They couldn’t go back.
* * *
“You said, the first time you see what it does.” Addy turned in her seat to look at him, her brows furrowed. “What did you mean by that? Have you… seen this before?”
Sawyer’s hands tightened slightly on the steering wheel. His gaze stayed locked on the cracked highway ahead, the lines of his face hardening in thought before he finally answered.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I’ve seen it.”
He paused, his jaw flexing as if he were deciding how much to tell her.
“When it first started going down long before anyone in the states had heard anything about it, I was working on a government contract overseas. Nothing glamorous, mostly logistics, coordination work. But once the first cases started popping up, things went bad fast. We were told it was an outbreak, some kind of respiratory pathogen. People were collapsing, coughing up blood, their skin graying out. Then came the fevers, the confusion, the aggression.”
He glanced over at her briefly, then back to the road.
“They pulled us out within a week. Said we were being redeployed to help contain it stateside. But when we got back…” He shook his head.
“There wasn’t any plan. No coordination.
No one even met us when we landed. Just…
silence. We got one message saying to go home, stay put, and wait for further orders. ”
“That’s it?” Addy asked, disbelief softening her voice.
“Yeah.” He gave a humorless laugh. “After ten years working with government ops, that was the first time I was ever told to just go home. Didn’t sit right with me, but I didn’t argue.
I wanted to get back to Gaines—to check on my grandma.
She raised me after my folks died. The only reason I ever came back to that little town. ”
He drew a long breath, his expression tightening.
“By the time I got there, she was already sick. I stayed with her for a day. Did what I could. Wore a mask, gloves, stayed careful, but…” His voice trailed off for a moment, then returned quieter.
“Didn’t matter. She was gone before I could even call anyone.
Not that anyone would’ve answered by then. ”
Addy looked down, her heart twisting. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.
Sawyer gave a small nod, eyes still on the horizon.
“Yeah. I left her there. She wouldn’t have wanted me to bury her in some ditch, and I wasn’t strong enough to…
do it myself. So I went back to my place.
Figured I’d wait it out, listen for updates.
I had some supplies stored, a radio setup, weapons, water—the works.
Guess I thought it’d only be a few weeks before things stabilized.
But the days kept going, and the world kept falling apart. ”
He adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. “The official channels went dead first. Then the news stations. Eventually, even the local frequencies started going quiet. That’s when I realized nobody was coming. Not to help, not to fix it. Just… silence.”