Chris woke up to shooting pain in his neck, along with the kind of stiffness that only came from a terrible sleeping position. His back protested as he shifted in the truck seat. A half-empty bottle of water rolled off his chest and clinked against the floorboard.
"Morning, sunshine," Dev said from the passenger seat, chewing jerky. "Truck seats still beat the pavement, right?"
"Barely," Chris muttered, rubbing his shoulder. "Feels like I got rear-ended by a train."
Jess put in her two cents, as soon as he said that. "That's what you get for volunteering to take first watch and then passing out halfway through it."
Chris smirked despite himself. Knowing he can not talk about the shard, and it's seemly a glorified warning system. "I thought we'd be fine with Devs snoring, it would of scared away anything in our surroundings."
Dev lifted the bag of jerky throwing it at him. "WOW, and you think you know a person."
Valez climbed out of the second truck and stretched, joints popping audibly. "If you two are done with stand-up hour, let's move. Sun's up and we've got ground to cover."
The morning was already warm, the air thick with that dry summer haze that made everything look slightly warped. The convoy had been parked off a cracked highway, half hidden beneath trees.
They still had supplies "stacked neatly", from the cultist camp, boxes of canned food from the gas station, bags of chips, and cases of water. It was enough to last weeks if they rationed wisely.
Jess leaned against her truck's hood, looking at the map. "So, Harrow Point's where the doc says we'll find a solution to our potential future problem, that we aren't even sure is a problem?"
Elara nodded, sitting on the tailgate with her chained metal case resting beside her. "If the facility's systems held, yes. There should be power cells, air filters, communications hardware, weapons, and much more to get your grubby hands on supplies wise that is ." While staring daggers at her and then Chris.
"And if it didn't hold?" Valez suddenly spoke up.
"Then we salvage what we can and keep heading north," Chris said. "The castle's still our main goal right?"
Dev swallowed his last bite of jerky. "Anyone else think we should maybe not walk into an ex-science bunker?"
Jess sighed. "If it gets us clean water and working batteries, we're walking in."
By mid-morning, the trucks rolled back onto the road. The air shimmered with heat, making the distance ripple.
Truck 1 — Chris, Dev, Elara
Dev flicked the radio on low, cycling through dead stations. "Can't believe every station is static now. I mean we can't even get kids pop"
Elara, and Chris just sighed quietly.
Dev shifted in his seat. "So, Doc, how long were you working at Harrow Point before things went bad?"
"Two years," she said. " The data I had access to goes back a lot further though, it was nearly a decade of scattered incidents I believe. At first, we thought they were medical anomalies such as irregular blood, cellular restructuring, and people surviving injuries that should've killed them."
Jess's voice came over the radio from the second truck. "Wait a decade? You're saying this didn't start last week?"
Elara looked out the window. "It started long before that. The world just wasn't paying attention."
Chris tightened his grip on the steering wheel. "And now we're driving into potential ground zero."
Truck 2 — Jess, Valez
Jess stared out the window as trees blurred past. "I feel like she is not saying everything," she said calmly once making sure the radio wasn't keyed up for them.
"She's saying enough, that Chris's weird ability isn't going off though," Valez replied. "If that place has power, we can use it. Imagine having actual shelter, water, even dare I say a shower. That's something I can hold on to."
Jess sighed. "You ever think we're just following any voice that sounds smart enough?"
"Always," he said. "But it beats following the ones that scream."
By noon, the trees thinned out. Gravel replaced asphalt.
Valez's voice came through the radio: "Eyes up. Something ahead."
The valley opened beneath them, it was a patchwork of overgrown fields and crumbling concrete. Three main buildings sat in the center, surrounded by twisted fencing and half-collapsed towers.
Chris slowed the truck to a crawl. "That's Harrow Point."
They saw a faint column of smoke curled from the western building, thin and steady.
"Could be a generator," Valez said.
"Or someone cooking lunch," Dev muttered.
Elara leaned forward, eyes narrowing. "That smoke's too clean for fire. Something's still running."
"Running what?" Jess asked.
Elara just stared at the smoke finally saying " I don't know."
They ended up parking on the ridge overlooking the compound, camouflaging both trucks with fallen branches.
Dev opened a can of peaches, offering it around. "Rations are fine, but thescenery sucks."
Jess sat beside him. "Could be worse. Could be pitch black."
"Don't jinx it," Valez said, scanning the valley with binoculars. "No movement outside. but there's sound, low frequency, mechanical. Like a turbine that I hear every now and then that's carried by the wind."
Chris leaned forward, peering down at the distant buildings. "I believe we should wait till morning. It's not smart to go anywhere at night."
Elara folded her arms. "Smart, it took us a few weeks ,of testing to realize that the entities reacted slowly during the day."
The group went quiet at that. The breeze hissed through the trees; somewhere far off, metal clanged, faint but rhythmic.
Dev muttered, "Please tell me that's the generator saying hi."
No one answered.
As the sun dipped behind the ridge, the light faded to red-gold. The facility below seemed to breathe with its own dim glow.
Jess keyed her radio softly. "Chris, the windows in the west building, did you see that flicker?"
"Yeah," he said. "Stay low. No lights tonight."
Valez adjusted his grip on the binoculars. "We move at first light."
"Agreed," Chris said.
He leaned back against the hood of the truck, exhaustion setting in again. The shard under his skin pulsed once faint and lukewarm, like it was aware of something he wasn't.
He still hasn't told the others, and he's not sure he ever will for all their sakes.