The group had been walking the dirt road for miles before they spotted the first house. It sat atop a hill a few yards off the path they walked, nearly hidden by the pine trees growing around it. Stables had seen the tip of the roof reaching out from the dry boughs, just barely standing out against the gray, darkening skies.

"Y’all see that?" she pointed a gloved hand at the hill and stopped, heaving off her backpack and bending over to unclip her canteen from it. "Looks hidden enough to me." Her breath came out heavy and laden with exhaustion. The five of them were tired and eager to find a place to rest for the night. The air was getting colder. Thinner. The dirt service road had been leading them upwards at a light incline since they had set upon it the night before. Vera spat out a sunflower seed shell and stared at the hill for a moment, her hands on her hips and expression annoyed and unimpressed as always.

"Yeah. Well. If we think it looks safe" she spat another shell out on the ground, "then so do other people." Lyra sat down with an exhausted sigh and took a swig from her water bottle.

"D’you really think there’s someone else out here? This far from the town? Let alone an actual fucking road?" there was a grumpy edge to her tone. Lyra had been complaining since they opted to ditch the car outside of Empire, and it had only gotten worse after they set off from the town in the night.

"Language." Stables said flatly, tossing the teen a disapproving glance. Piotr shouldered his bag, then dropped it with a resounding ‘plop’ and a hum of uncertainty. Folding his arms, he tilted back and studied the sky. His breath misting into the air before him as the temperature continued to fall.

"It’s probably gonna snow today...probably the first of the season, seeing as there’s none of it on the ground." he looked back to the house on the hill and then around at the group. "We can’t sleep outside while we’re out here." Vera spat a seed at that and scoffed.

"You’re babying her, Pete. Again." Vera exchanged glares with Piotr and offered a sarcastic smirk, chewing mouth open, obnoxiously loud. Piotr kept his usual stonewall expression and motioned to the landscape casually.

"This can’t be the only house out here. Old rich fucks-"

"Language." Stables interjected patronizingly before taking another swig of water and looking around.

"If anyone else is out here” Piotr continued, “they’d spot us easily if we slept in these valleys. There aren’t enough trees to provide any real coverage for us. And if it does snow -which it will, if not tonight then tomorrow- then we’ll stick out like a sore thumb." Vera rolled her eyes and reached into the sunflower seed bag for another handful.

"He’s right." Art said to break the silence. "Plus, if it does snow it could be feet of it. I mean, it’s got to be, what? Mid-October? November? Somewhere around there. Who knows what could happen. Could be nothing, but it’s probably dropped ten or so degrees since the clouds came out a while back. I’m leaning more towards it being a pretty bad winter. We aren’t prepared for that type of cold yet. We’re already taking a big risk of getting sick in this weather." he slid his bag around to his chest and unzipped it, digging around and pulling out a protein bar before tossing it at Lyra. She gave him a toothy smile and started unwrapping it.

"Keep the trash." Piotr reminded her bluntly, ignoring her rolling eyes and looking back to Vera. "I don’t trust it either, V. But it is hidden well. We could stay there tonight and see if it snows. Art and I can pull a double on watch." Vera looked at Art, chewing expectantly with amusement glinting in her eyes.

"That right Art?" her mouth smacking loudly between bites. "You gonna pull a double after an eight hour ruck? You even sleep last night?" Art looked back and forth from Vera and Piotr, then to Stables. The bags under his eyes were telling. Stables chuckled humorously,

"Don’t look at me. That’s between y’all." She pointed between Piotr and Art. "I will say though: if it does snow, and we get stuck in it, then anyone can follow our tracks through here. So wherever we go, whatever we do, we need to do it soon." She was right. And the thought left a sour taste in the air. As if on queue, the wind picked up and sent a shiver through the party. Out in the distance the sky was black, and the clouds above them raced. Vera dropped her arms down in defeat.

"Fine. But you saw the same map as I did. There’s more maps further in." she motioned further down the trail with a smirk. "The deeper in we go before it snows, the smaller the chance of us being tracked down there after the fact." With a shrug the bag was back on her back and Vera stood chewing smugly, waiting for a reply. Stables bent down with a grunt and hefted her bag up onto her back before clipping the canteen on it. Lyra looked back and forth between Art and Piotr, a puppy dog look on her face. She was tired of walking, her thighs and calves were burning. She could feel the blisters on her feet screaming for reprieve.

“Fine. Next house, then.” Piotr huffed lurching his bag back onto his back and adjusting the straps and buckles.

Roughly eight hours prior, the five of them had been sleeping on the rooftop of a gas station just outside of Empire. Art woke them up just past midnight, wild-eyed and sweating bullets. He told them he heard screams just blocks away while on watch. Piotr had been the first one up. Lyra blinked hard and rolled out of her sleeping bag, panic prickling her skin and standing her hairs on end. Hands trembling, she rolled up her sleeping bag and deflated the air pad underneath before shoving them into her backpack. She heard someone scream and beg for mercy in the distance and it sent a tremble down her legs.

Stables shushed her quietly from behind and draped Lyra’s too-big tan jacket over the girl’s shoulders and gave them a squeeze. It practically swallowed her small frame.

“It’s okay baby girl…let’s just stay low now.” Stables was a big woman - tall and strong. Her voice came out motherly, soft, and soothing. Lyra nodded slowly and bit back a trembling whimper.

“Th-they can’t…they can’t see us up here anyway, right Mrs.Stables?” she stuttered and crouched low over her bag, fishing out her gloves and clenching her frozen hands into fists repeatedly to force some heat and blood into them.

“Not unless we do something to make them look up here, so let’s stay small and quiet now, alright?”

“Yes ma’am…” Lyra whispered, squatting down even lower now and tucking her knees to her chest. She watched an ant crawl across the blacktop near her foot and marvel at her boot, and she tried to imagine what it was like to be that small. She tried to pretend that she was as tiny and unnoticeable as the insect. Tried to run away to some other corner of her mind. But the screaming was getting closer now. The primal howling and chattering of what were once humans drew louder, and Lyra could just make out bits and pieces of their incoherent ramblings.

She pressed her hands over her ears and Stables pressed her mitts on top as well, pulling Lyra in to hold her. The two of them watched Art, Piotr, and Vera at the end of the roof. Art and Piotr were looking through a pair of binoculars while Vera stared down the long scope atop her rifle.

“Right there - down by the pharmacy.” Piotr said flatly. “Poor fucks.” Art looked away to Lyra and Stables and gave a thumbs up, mouthing ‘It’s okay’ before looking back.

“I guess it’s a good thing they wouldn’t let us stay with them...” Art whispered out of the corner of this mouth. Vera chuckled.

“Karma has a funny way of doing that.” She spat a sunflower shell off of the roof. Art rolled his eyes.

“You wouldn’t have let them in if the roles were reversed.” Piotr said without looking away from his binoculars.

“Good thing they weren’t then, huh Petey?” She didn’t move her head from its resting place by the scope, but her half-cocked smile was clear. Sometimes Art thought Vera could survive off sarcasm and getting under people’s skin. Especially when it came to Piotr. There was a moment of silence as the group watched the violence unfold.

The five of them had taken to calling them ‘babblers’ - the ones who had turned - in reference to the late stage symptom of their ailment, which forced them to babble and ramble on incoherently. Some of them said entire sentences. Some of them only said a single word, over and over until their vocal cords were chafed raw or their throats were wetted with blood or flesh. Sometimes the group had seen the creatures dipping their heads into rivers and pools of water madly, as if instinct was telling them to drink but they didn’t understand how. Sometimes they saw them keep their heads under until the bubbles ceased rising and the bodies went limp. On one occasion the party had even watched as a pack of the things walked into a raging river, one by one, sucked into the current and dashed upon the rocks.

These ones were smarter. By the look of them they had been around a little longer. They saw that sometimes. ‘Smart’ maybe wasn’t the best way to put it, but they had a predatory cunning about them. Art thought that the smarter ones were able to draw on more of the skills and memories they had before their change. Sometimes he thought they were just better at being mean.

A teenager tumbled out of the shattered streetfront window of the pharmacy. The silence between the three grew thicker. Lanky and thin, he couldn’t have been older than 16 or 17. He stumbled and his voice cracked as he called out for help.

“He’s hurt. Can’t risk it.” Vera said flatly.

“Agreed.” Piotr echoed.

Art stayed silent, watching. The teen called out for help again with a shrill desperation. Art’s jaw clenched when he saw the silhouette of a woman standing in the pharmacy window, watching the boy. Crimson fingers gripped the window sill and shards of glass dug into her palms as she hoisted herself over and out of the window. The woman wore a tattered sundress that was drenched in blood and clung to her frame. There was a backdrop of wailing from inside the store as the rest of the group the teen was with was set upon.

The boy turned back, saw her, and sobbed. He stumbled to his feet, but a heavy limp kept him from getting far. The woman bent over, picked up a large shard of glass and gripped it until blood dripped down from her fist.

“Don’t run run run run run…” she repeated hauntingly, starting to walk towards him as he attempted to quicken the pace of his limp. “...run run run run run…”

“Please! Please, stop! I don’t - I don’t want to!” the boy whined just before tripping over himself, landing on his hands and knees. A spasm wracked the babbler woman’s body. She jerkily raised the shard of glass up into the air while breaking into a trot towards the downed boy, blood trickling down her forearm.

“Oh! OH!” the babbler shouted as she leaped and landed onto the boy’s back, straddling him. “Don’t run! Don’t run! Don’t run!” she started to stab him over and over again, each time the shard came back shorter, fractured. He screamed, splaying out flat on the road with flailing limbs. “RUN. RUN. RUN. RUN. RUNNNNNN.” the babbler gripped a handful of his hair and yanked his head back. The boy’s scream turned shrill as she drove the nub of glass into his throat. They were too far to hear the gurgling, but they could see air bubbling out of his throat in bright pink-red bulbs. She continued to hack and yank at his throat and hair before dropping the fragment of glass and gripping the side of his head. With a sharp twist she turned his head completely around to face her before pulling upwards until the tendons and veins gave out and the head came free.

“My boy my boy my boy. My boy? My boy!” she cooed and cawed to the slack jawed head, coddling and cradling it like a newborn. From the scope of her rifle Vera scowled and watched the babbler pull out her bloodied breast and shove the head to it, trying mindlessly to get it to suckle.

“Jesus fuckin’ wept…these things never cease to disgust me. You think she had a kid when she turned?” Vera whispered to the other two.

“How many did you see go inside?” Piotr asked plainly. Art felt like it was partly an excuse to shift the topic. Vera exhaled a short dry laugh.

“Five or six. The kid won’t turn - obviously - but who knows about the ones he was with.”

“We should just let them pass. Just watch where they go and let them be on their way.”

Art sighed in resignation as two more gore-splattered figures climbed out of the pharmacy window and began making their way towards the now headless corpse, eager to do their share of deranged abuse upon the body. He looked away from the binoculars and shuffled backwards on his belly slowly. “Keep me posted.” he muttered to Piotr as he slid by. Piotr muttered back an affirmation that he had heard him but never looked away from the assault below.

Certain he was out of sight, Art stood to a crouched position and moved over towards Stables and Lyra. Stables gave Art a look of curiosity tinged with concern. She cocked her head to the side and mouthed “Anything?” while holding Lyra’s head against her chest, her fingers scratching the girl’s hair soothingly.

“We’re fine, they haven’t seen us.” Art whispered. Lyra pulled away from Stables and looked at him with swollen, watery eyes. He pursed his lips into an angle. “We’re just going to wait for them to move on. I think we should get packed though, and probably take off when we see them clear a few blocks.” Stables nodded and gave Lyra’s shoulders a squeeze.

“Lyra baby, get your things together.” she said to the girl.

“I already did…” Lyra sniffled and motioned to her backpack.

“Alright then. Good girl. I want you to roll up my sleeping bag and get my pad all deflated okay? Art and I are gonna look over the map for a bit.” The young girl nodded and crawled on hands and knees to the spot where Stable’s things were set up. The two adults watched her go with sad silence. Lyra was only 14 years old, tall for her age, awkward and all knees and elbows with the growth spurts of puberty. Beneath a black beanie grew a wild mess of curled blonde hair. When the sunlight hit it just right there were hints of strawberry red in her locks. Her canvas jacket smelled of cigarettes and motor oil. It was her prized possession, and the only thing of her father’s that she had left, aside from his memory. Lyra spoke of the man often, and fondly, but with the grief-panged past tense of someone who is still haunted by loss. Art and Piotr had come across her and Stables early on in the outbreak. Piotr had always maintained that the less you knew about something you cared about, the easier it was to lose it, and as such had refrained from asking for details about those he traveled with. Art was not capable of such compartmentalization, and from time to time had tactfully inquired about the history of his travel companions.

“The world is ending, and I don’t know why. At least I can know the people by my side.” he would tell Piotr. To which Piotr would reply, “That’s fucking stupid. But whatever.”

“Bless her heart.” Stables said, shaking her head and pulling a well-creased map from her inner coat pocket. “I don’t know why the Lord has done it, puttin’ all this on the plate of someone so young and fragile.” she huffed again and flattened the map out on the ground between her and Art. Her finger hovered over the map and perused their general area for a moment as she honed in on their location. Art found it first, the small dot labeled “EMPIRE.” His gloved finger tapped it lightly.

“Maybe it wasn’t Him.” Art mused almost to himself. Stables just raised a brow and sighed again.

“So we’re here.” she said, touching the dot. “There’s a maintenance road that we can follow south for a few miles that will lead us into the woods. It’s a National Forest, ‘aint much there but the trees. Maybe a cabin if we’re lucky. But” Her finger traced the line on the map “if we keep at it for a few miles it looks like it trails back into private land.” Her finger tapped around at scattered houses on the map. “Some small unincorporated community if I had to guess. But there’s a lake. Maybe fish. A good amount of woods. Vera and Ly are good shots, they could try to hunt…”

“With this weather we’re going to need to be lucky.” Art frowned. Stables looked up at the clouds racing in the sky, obscuring and revealing the moon like morse code. “I’ll let V and Piotr know what the plan is. You know they’ll have something to say about it.”

The five of them sat on the roof for another few hours, huddled together around a tiny propane stove in the center of the roof, boiling water for tea. They couldn’t have an open fire, obviously, but the wind had picked up and temperatures had dropped considerably. Art wanted coffee, but Vera had been concerned that the babblers would smell it. Black tea just didn’t have the same effect, but it was a comfort however small. The sound of shattering glass and incoherent chatter echoed through the small town’s empty mainstreet, getting further and further away before fading completely. Vera broke the silence and killed the stove.

“The plan sucks.” she spat before taking a sip of tea. “We’ve hardly checked out half the town. There could be good shit here still. You can’t tell me we’re better off hoofing it through the woods to loot some McMansions.” They all shifted a bit. Lyra blew on the top of her mug.

“Would be nice to sleep in a fancy house though, V.” her lips tiled up into a sheepish smile, her big front teeth pushing out her lips. “Bet it’s better than a sleeping bag. An’ I bet they have fancy food, too.” She was chewing on the skin of her bottom lip at the thought of something that wasn’t freeze dried or salted to hell.

“And if there’s nothing there?” Piotr said, tossing a tiny, plastic bear shaped bottle to Lyra. “What if we get out there and it’s all been hit? Or if there’s some lunatic holed up in one of them who shoots first and asks questions later? We all remember Dan.” The name hung in the air. Lyra pursed her lips and watched the beads of honey dropping into her cup, once again trying to push her mind somewhere else.

“What happened to Dan could’ve happened no matter where we were.” Stables leered at Piotr, caught his eye, then tossed her eyes to Lyra and back to his. She slowly shook her head. Piotr held her gaze. His face was stony and hard, exaggerated by a square jaw, high cheeks and sharp almond eyes. There was no malice in it. It was the face of someone who laid reality on the table even if it was ugly. But after a beat, he nodded and sipped his tea. He’d say no more on Dan. On how they all watched his stomach get blown out of his back by a booby trapped door handle strung up to a shotgun. Not on the lunatic inside who had his infected family tied up in his basement. Not on the way Piotr went inside and made the man scream like a child. And not on the way Art held Dan while he choked out sobs and died on the porch.

“We’ll stay on our toes and check em slow. If something feels off, we bail and head back. If anything we’re right back here the day after next.” Art said, looking to Vera and Piotr and nodding his head, trying to sell the plan. He hid his desperation well. They’d been moving non-stop for weeks and it was wearing him down. He wanted a break. Needed it.

“We should leave tonight.” Piotr stated to Vera and Art’s surprise. Vera sneered and rolled her eyes.

“You’re nutty if you think I’m moving at night. You’ve got brain damage if you think that’s smart in literally any fuckin’ capacity.” She hissed.

“Language, V.” Stables cut in. Vera sent the twisted scowl to her.

Piotr didn’t budge. His eyes met Art’s and Stables’.

“We can hike in the dark or in the snow. It won’t be long now. Tomorrow, maybe Thursday, but either way it’s coming.” he said cupping his hands around the mug and squeezing it for warmth. Vera threw up her hands in resignation.

“Whatever, man. If the kid rolls her ankle I’m not carrying her.” Lyra shot her wounded eyes behind a furrowed brow and slid the honey jar back to Piotr. “And I’m not taking night shift tomorrow either.” Vera added pouring the tea out behind her before crawling off and angrily packing the rest of her things. Stables opened her mouth to protest but it caught in her throat as an agonized cry resounded from the street below. They all froze. Vera scuttled to the rifle at the edge of the roof and peered into the scope. Looked left and right. Froze, then pulled back and moved towards the group wide eyed. “We gotta go. Survivors at the pharmacy are turning.” They all nodded and stuffed the remaining gear into their bags haphazardly and made for the metal ladder opposite of the streetside. None of them were sure how much memory remained after the infection took hold, but they weren’t going to take the chance that these ones wouldn’t come looking for them. They descended the ladder and hurried off into the night with Stables at the head.