A handful of people who woke up yesterday morning thinking they'd be home in a few days. Now they're cooling meat on a mountain road, and if we don't move them, the zombies will find them by nightfall.
They wanted the supplies, which means they wanted them badly enough to plan this. To scout the route, choose the ambush point, and bring enough people to guarantee success. This wasn't desperation or opportunity. This was strategic.
This is the same signature Ruby and Mayson have been tracking through the security network. The same organizedraiders are hitting medical convoys across the territory. Someone's building an operation out there, and they're getting better at it.
Eric crouches beside a burnt-out trailer, his young face grim beneath road dust. At nineteen, he's seen more death than anyone should, but it still hits him. I can see it in the way his jaw tightens, the way he won't look directly at the bodies.
"Seven dead total. Looks like they held out for a while."
"They did." I study the bullet casings, the defensive positions, the way bodies fell in patterns that suggest coordinated fire. "These were good people. Trained. They knew what they were doing."
"Didn't help."
No. It didn't.
Almost a day later, we found their sole survivor. She’s getting patched up right now, but I can’t shake the memory of her eyes burning into mine.
I think about Hazel's grip on my wrist. The desperate strength in her fever-glazed eyes.They're waiting for us to come home,she said. Not me. Us.
She carried that burden through the night on an infected wound. Through the darkness, evading any raiders still in the area, pushing through fever and pain because she promised someone she'd finish the delivery. Because the people she loved died protecting those supplies and she couldn't let that be meaningless.
Survivor's guilt. I know it intimately. Know the way it sits in your chest like a stone, the way it makes every breath feel like betrayal.
"We're diverting to Old Pines," I tell the crew when I return to the ATVs. "Full delivery escort."
Ken and Patricia exchange glances from their shared vehicle. They've been married thirty years, met at a county fair, survived the outbreak together, and joined my crew six months ago. They communicate in looks the way long-married couples do, whole conversations happening in the space between heartbeats.
"That's three days out of our way," Ken points out. Not argumentative, just factual. Ken's always factual. It's what makes him reliable. "Ruby's expecting us at Hope Tower by week's end."
"Ruby will understand." I watch Jess finishing Hazel's first aid. "These supplies are medical. Old Pines has been waiting months. And if the raiders who hit her convoy are still active in this area..."
"They'll be hunting for the survivor," Eric finishes, understanding dawning. "She's a loose end."
"She's a person." My voice comes out sharp, and I see Ken's eyebrows rise slightly. "A person who walked all night on an infected wound to finish a delivery for her dead friends. We're helping her."
Nobody argues after that.
We rig a stretcher behind my ATV, cushioned with spare blankets from our emergency stores. Hazel is unconscious through most of the first day, which is probably a mercy. Jess checks on her every hour, adjusting fluids, monitoring the fever that's still burning too high.
"She'll make it," Jess tells me that evening as we set up camp. The sun is setting behind the mountains, painting the sky inshades of gold and blood. "Tough one. Most people would've collapsed hours earlier with that infection spreading."
"Most people would've dropped the supplies."
"Yeah." Jess watches me watching Hazel's sleeping form. Something knowing in her expression. "That too."
I assign myself the first watch, which nobody questions. The crew knows I don't sleep well. I haven't since Alaska, since the settlement we couldn't save. Thirty people died because we were twelve hours too late. Weather delays, equipment failure, bad intel. A thousand decisions that seemed right at the time and added up to disaster.
I've replayed those decisions a thousand times. Changed nothing. The outcome stays the same no matter how I rearrange the variables.
Sometimes survival is just luck.
Around midnight, Hazel stirs. I move to her side, ready to call Jess, but her eyes focus on me with surprising clarity, and she shakes her head slightly.
"Water?"
I help her drink, supporting her head with one hand. She's still too pale, skin almost translucent in the firelight, but the fever-flush has faded. The antibiotics are working.
"Your crew," she says quietly. "They seem solid."
