They smelled the blood before Mari heard them.
It wasn't the moaning that came first anymore—not the scattered, lazy groans that used to drift through streets like background noise. This was different. This was intent. A change in cadence. The shuffle behind them sharpened, footsteps dragging faster, bodies bumping into one another as something ancient and simple rewired itself around a single instinct.
Food.
Mari staggered, nearly losing her footing as Ethan's weight sagged harder against her shoulder. His arm was slung around her neck, slick with blood that soaked into her jacket, warm and unstoppable. Every step sent a fresh pulse of pain through him, and she could feel it in the way his body jolted—like a car running on metal instead of tires.
"I can't," Ethan rasped. His breath was ragged, wet. "Mari—stop. You have to—"
"Don't," she said, though her voice barely made it past her own pounding heartbeat.
He stumbled again, and this time she almost went down with him. Her boots skidded on grit and something soft that burst underfoot. She didn't look. She didn't want to know.
"They're close," Ethan said, forcing the words through clenched teeth. "You hear them. You need to let me go."
"I said don't."
He grabbed her sleeve with the hand that still worked, fingers digging in with surprising strength. "I'm dead weight," he said. "You know it. I'll slow you down. You can make it if you drop me."
The word drop hit her harder than any blow.
Drop him.
Like he was cargo. Like he was already gone.
She dragged him another step, then another, legs burning, lungs screaming. The world had narrowed into fragments—dark walls, broken pavement, the copper stench of blood and rot layered so thick she could taste it. Her arms shook. Her shoulders felt like they were tearing from their sockets.
"You could live," Ethan said quietly. "I'll buy you time."
Mari laughed then—once, sharp and broken. It startled even her.
"Live for what?" she snapped.
He didn't answer.
She didn't wait for one.
Justin's face crashed into her mind without warning. Not the way he'd looked at the end—smeared with dirt and sweat and fear—but the version she kept tucked away, safe. Justin leaning against the Jeep with his arms crossed, sunlight catching in his hair. Justin grinning like he always knew something she didn't. Justin promising her, in a thousand small ways, that the world was still worth planning for.
If anything happens to me…
Her chest tightened so hard she thought she might collapse.
She hadn't let herself think past that moment. Not really. She'd shoved the grief down, packed it away under responsibility and anger and motion. As long as she kept moving, she didn't have to feel the shape of the hole he'd left behind.
But now she was moving slower.
Now the dead were gaining.
Now there was nothing left to distract her from the truth.
Justin was gone.
Marcus was gone.
Kenzie was gone.
Ella Belle was still missing.
And her parents—God, her parents.
The thought landed like a delayed explosion. She had been avoiding it deliberately, skirting around it like a landmine she didn't want to trigger. Her mom's voice, her dad's dumb jokes, the way they always answered the phone no matter what time she called.
They weren't answering now.
They hadn't been.
Mari swallowed hard, her throat burning.
They're dead, she thought. Or worse.
The world didn't leave room for softer possibilities.
Ethan stumbled again, nearly pulling them both down. Mari barely caught herself, her knee slamming into the ground. Pain flared, sharp and hot, but she didn't feel it for long. Pain had become background noise—just another thing to carry.
"Leave me," Ethan begged, his voice cracking. "Please. Don't make this worse."
Worse.
She wanted to scream at him, to shake him, to tell him he didn't get to decide who she lost next. But the words wouldn't come. She was too tired. Her body felt hollowed out, like something had scraped her clean from the inside.
The zombies were close enough now that she could hear individual sounds—the wet slap of feet on concrete, the rattling breaths that sounded like lungs full of gravel. One of them shrieked, high and sharp, and others answered.
They were almost on them.
Mari spotted the back of a building just ahead—nothing special, just brick and shadow and a narrow service alley that disappeared into darkness. She didn't remember turning. She didn't remember choosing. Her body moved on instinct alone, dragging Ethan with the last of her strength.
They stumbled into the alley, the world shrinking again as walls closed in around them. The smell changed—less open air, more mildew and garbage and old piss. She lost all sense of direction. Left, right, forward—it didn't matter anymore.
The CVS was gone.
The mall was gone.
Everything familiar had vanished behind a curtain of panic and exhaustion.
She hauled Ethan another few feet, then another, until her legs finally buckled. They collapsed together near the back wall, Ethan sliding half out of her arms, his weight dragging her down with him.
She pressed her back against the brick, gasping.
Ethan sagged, his head lolling forward.
"Ethan?" she whispered.
No response.
His eyes were closed now, lashes dark against his cheeks. His chest still rose, shallow and uneven, but his grip had gone slack.
He was out.
"Okay," Mari breathed, though she wasn't sure who she was talking to. "Okay. Okay."
She could hear them clearly now.
The horde poured into the alley mouth like water through a broken dam. Shadows stacked and shifted, bodies bumping and tangling as they pressed forward, drawn by the blood trail she'd painted behind them.
The stench hit her full in the face.
Rot. Waste. Sweet decay.
Her stomach turned violently.
She pressed a hand to her mouth, fighting the urge to vomit, knowing the sound alone would be enough to finish them.
Her other hand drifted down to her belly without thinking.
She froze when she realized what she was doing.
Her fingers curled there, just beneath her jacket, as if she could feel something through layers of fabric and muscle and bone. A phantom sensation. A reminder.
The baby.
The word felt foreign now. Unreal.
She and Justin had talked about it in whispers and jokes, in half-serious what-ifs that had always felt safe because the future was supposed to exist. They'd talked about names, about how he'd teach their kid to drive in the Jeep, about how she'd be the strict one and he'd be the fun one.
That life was gone.
She didn't want this anymore.
The thought was sharp and ugly and honest.
What kind of world was this to bring a child into? A world of teeth and blood and running until your legs gave out? A world without a father, without safety, without even the promise of tomorrow?
Her chest hitched.
Maybe this was it.
Maybe she was done.
She was tired of running.
Tired of crying.
Tired of surviving out of spite.
Her arms trembled as she tightened her hold on Ethan's limp body, pulling him closer, shielding him even though she knew it didn't matter.
The zombies were steps away now. She could hear them bumping into trash cans, knocking over something metal that clanged loudly before being drowned out by snarls and wet breathing.
She closed her eyes.
"Please," she whispered—not to God, not to anyone specific. "Just make it quick."
She leaned her forehead against the brick, breath shuddering.
Let it be fast. For him, at least.
She felt the air change behind her.
A sudden shift. Movement that didn't match the rhythm of the horde.
Something scraped against the wall she was pressed to—wood on brick, maybe. A low thud. A hiss of breath.
Her eyes snapped open just as a door behind her burst inward.
She had time to register hands—too thin, nails too sharp—grabbing at her jacket, at Ethan's shoulders.
She fell backward with a startled cry, instinctively curling around Ethan as they were dragged through the doorway and into darkness.
The door slammed shut behind them.
The world went silent.
Let this be quick, she thought as the darkness swallowed them whole.
And then there was nothing but hands, and shadow, and the sound of the dead clawing at the other side of the wall.