Wednesday, December 10, 2025, 8:13 AM
Countdown to Extraction: 66 Hours, 28 Minutes Remaining
Kenzie didn't understand it at first.
One second, the massive armored Jeep was right there—the heavy V8 engine rumbling, thick white exhaust curling low against the frozen asphalt, the blinding headlights cutting through the smoke—and the next, it simply wasn't.
It lurched forward without a single second of warning, the massive mud tires crunching over glass and debris. The mechanical roar of the engine stretched thin, the distance rapidly swallowing the absolute only sanctuary she had left in the world.
Gone.
Her brain completely refused to catch up.
She stood frozen in the middle of the street, one trembling hand still half-raised in the empty air, like she could still grab the steel door handle. Like if she just moved a fraction of a second faster, she could reach through the fabric of reality and undo it.
The image burned itself into her retinas with cruel, photographic clarity: Tally trapped behind the ballistic glass, her body twisted desperately backward, her mouth ripped wide open in an agonizing, feral scream that Kenzie could still hear echoing in the street even after the Jeep disappeared around the bend.
Kenzie—!
The devastating sound of her own name lodged itself deep in the center of her chest, sharp and unfinished.
Then, two distinct, terrifying sounds cut through the grey morning, blending together into a horrific symphony of pure survival.
First, the mechanical clack-clack of a pump-action shotgun racking a heavy shell into the chamber.
It was a sharp, distinct, human sound. Kenzie whipped her head around. Directly behind where the Jeep had just been idling, stepping out from the pitch-black shadows of a narrow alleyway, were three men. They weren't stumbling. They weren't infected. They moved with cold, predatory coordination, their eyes locked on the fleeing Wrangler, heavy blued-steel shotguns and hunting rifles raised to their shoulders.
They had been flanking the truck. It was an ambush.
In that fractured second, the brutal calculus of Ethan's decision slammed into Kenzie's chest like a physical blow. He hadn't just abandoned her because she was too slow. He had seen the guns. He knew a five-ton armored vehicle was the most valuable prize in a dying city. If he had shifted into Park to wait for her, those men would have blown the windows out and executed everyone inside. Ethan had cut her loose to save Tally.
The second sound was a massive, collective, guttural roar that erupted from the main avenue.
The screaming. The gun. The idling engine. It was an industrial dinner bell, and the main horde had finally arrived to answer it.
Hundreds of grey, rotting bodies poured from the intersections, a writhing, unstoppable tide of dead meat cascading down Abercorn Street, drawn by the scent of warm flesh and the noise. The three armed men in the alley saw the massive wave of infected cresting the hill and instantly broke their flanking formation, abandoning the Jeep and scrambling backward into the shadows to save their own skin.
"Kenzie—MOVE!" Aaron roared.
A heavy hand yanked her arm, pulling her so hard her shoulder socket popped. Suddenly she was sprinting—stumbling blindly, being dragged forward by Aaron, her boots barely keeping pace as pure panic finally snapped her paralyzed muscles back into motion.
"They're right behind us! Move!" Aaron yelled, his steel crowbar gripped tight, shoving Alyssa and Lila forward.
They ran.
Their lungs burned in the freezing air, filled with the copper tang of fear. They sprinted past stalled sedans and civilian bodies slumped at impossible, broken angles over steering wheels. They ran past apartment buildings where desperate people hung halfway out of shattered windows, frantically waving torn shirts and ripped cardboard boxes with HELP scrawled in blood.
No one on the street stopped to help them. No one dared.
Directly behind them, the wet, clicking moans of the infected intensified, growing louder and closer with every second. Kenzie could hear the chaotic scritch-scratch of hundreds of decaying fingernails clawing at the concrete, the heavy, uncoordinated footsteps of the horde in pursuit.
This was Day Two. Everyone left alive already knew what stopping meant.
Kenzie clutched the canvas carrier tighter to her chest, the heavy weight an agonizing anchor, as Barbie let out a high-pitched, terrified whimper. The tiny dog's tremors vibrated directly against Kenzie's ribs. She pressed her forearm over the mesh instinctively, shielding the animal as if her own fragile body could actually protect something innocent in a world that had become a slaughterhouse.
"I've got you," Kenzie gasped, breathless, hot tears blurring the ruined world around her. "I've got you."
Directly ahead of them, a man stepped out of a recessed commercial doorway, waving a heavy metal flashlight.
"THIS WAY!" the man shouted, his voice cracking. "THE BANK—GET IN HERE NOW!"
Kenzie barely registered the words before Aaron was yanking her sideways. Her sneakers skidded across the frosted concrete as they veered sharply off the exposed street. The heavy, reinforced glass doors of a Chase Bank branch were already pulled open. One of the thick panes was severely spiderwebbed from a thrown brick, but the frame held.
They spilled inside, collapsing onto the polished marble floor.
The man and Aaron slammed the heavy glass doors shut behind them just as the massive swarm of infected crashed against the exterior. Hundreds of rotting hands slapped against the thick glass, grey faces pressing flat against the pane, their shattered teeth clicking frantically against the barrier.
Hands in the dim lobby scrambled in the dark, dragging a heavy solid-oak waiting bench and a rolling metal brochure rack directly in front of the handles. The stranger hit a security switch on the wall, and a heavy metal grate rattled loudly down from the ceiling—it jammed halfway, not fully closing, but it dropped low enough to buy them seconds. Maybe minutes.
Kenzie immediately collapsed against the cold drywall, sliding down until her knees hit the tile.
The bank smelled entirely wrong. Stale breakroom coffee, terrified sweat, copier toner, and a sharp, metallic undercurrent of biological fear. Cheerful mortgage flyers still hung perfectly straight on the walls. A red digital clock suspended above the teller line glowed brightly, silently blinking the wrong time.
Her chest heaved as she desperately tried to pull oxygen past the suffocating ache in her throat. The physical exertion was nothing compared to the catastrophic weight of the morning crashing down on her.
Barbie whimpered again, sharper this time.
Kenzie's hands shook violently as she fumbled with the brass zippers, opening the canvas bag just enough to slip her freezing fingers inside. She touched the dog's warm fur, desperately trying to ground herself. Barbie pressed her tiny wet nose directly into Kenzie's palm, shaking uncontrollably, looking for a comfort Kenzie didn't feel capable of giving.
She was alone.
The reality of it was a physical amputation. It felt like a toxic, rotting curse sitting in her veins.
Her dad had died three years ago—a massive pileup on the interstate, twisting metal and shattered glass that had ripped a hole in her childhood she never really recovered from.
And then yesterday happened.
Kenzie squeezed her eyes shut, but the memories played anyway, projecting onto the dark of her eyelids. Her bedridden grandmother, hollowed out by cancer, suddenly standing at the top of the stairs with bright, wet red smeared across her mouth. Her mother, reaching out to help, only to have her own mother tear her throat open.
Kenzie had locked herself in the bathroom. She had huddled in the tub, hands clamped over her ears, listening to the wet, tearing sounds. And then the front door had opened. Her brother Leo had come home from school, his headphones on, completely oblivious to the slaughterhouse his home had become.
She had banged on the glass. She had screamed his name until she tasted blood. She watched him look up at the window, confusion on his face, right before their mother and grandmother tackled him to the floor. She listened to him scream her name as they ate him alive. Bones snapping like dry wood. Snap. Snap. Snap.
She had lost absolutely everything in the span of an hour.
And then she had found Justin. And she had found Tally. Tally, who had been her best friend since they were in pigtails. Tally, who was the very last piece of home Kenzie had left on this earth.
Now Justin was gone. And Tally had just been driven away, her face pressed against the glass, screaming Kenzie's name exactly like Leo had.
It was a sickness. A horrific, undeniable pattern. If you loved Kenzie, you died. Or you were violently forced to leave her behind on the asphalt. Nobody in the entire ruined world knew her name anymore.
Nobody except Barbie.
Looking down at the tiny, shivering Yorkie, the consuming, narcissistic grief that was threatening to swallow Kenzie whole hardened into a heavy, suffocating iron core. She didn't possess Ethan's tactical brilliance, or Justin's explosive strength, or Tally's arrogant fire. She was just Kenzie. The girl who was always left behind.
But she was the absolute only thing standing between this five-pound dog and the snapping teeth outside the glass. If she curled up and died, Barbie died.
I am not going to let you die, Kenzie thought, the resolve settling into her bones like lead. She needed to get this out. Now. Before Aaron finished checking the offices, before the new world demanded she be strong.
Kenzie folded completely over her own knees, burying her face in her arms. Silent, racking sobs shook her small shoulders. It was the horrific kind of crying that didn't make any noise, because subconsciously, her body already knew that making noise was a death sentence. She actively used the terrifying symphony of the dead pounding on the bank windows to muffle her own breakdown. She cried out the betrayal. The utter, devastating abandonment. She cried for her dad, for her mom, for Leo's screams, for Tally's face fading into the smoke. She let the trauma bleed out onto the cold marble tile, purging the last remnants of the girl who thought she actually mattered to anyone.
It lasted exactly sixty seconds.
Then, Kenzie took one slow, deliberate, shuddering breath and sat up.
She wiped her wet face aggressively with the back of her sleeve, smearing the dirt and tears into a hard, defensive mask. She finished zipping Barbie's carrier, leaving a small gap for air, then tightly zipped the carrier itself into her heavy North Face duffel bag.
"I'm so sorry."
The voice was tiny, fragile, and absolutely heartbroken.
Kenzie looked up. Alyssa was standing near the edge of the teller line, her shoulders hunched. Tears were freely spilling over Alyssa's soot-stained cheeks, her eyes wide with a crushing, devastating realization.
"I'm so sorry, Kenzie," Alyssa whispered, her voice violently shaking as she stared at the younger girl. "They left you. Because we ran up to the truck... we made them panic. They left you behind because of us. I'm so sorry."
Kenzie looked at the college student. A part of her desperately wanted to scream at Alyssa. She wanted to blame her. She wanted to hurl all of her agonizing grief directly at this girl who still had her boyfriend, who still had her best friend, who hadn't lost absolutely everyone.
But she couldn't. It wasn't Alyssa's fault the world was broken.
"They didn't leave because of you," Kenzie replied. Her voice was completely devoid of its previous tremolo. It was thick, gravelly, and frighteningly calm. "There were men in the alley."
Before Alyssa could even process the words, Aaron stepped forward. His face was grim, the heavy steel crowbar hanging at his side, his chest still heaving from the sprint.
"She's right," Aaron said, his voice low and dead serious. "I caught it right as the horde started pouring over the hill. Three guys slipping out of the shadows behind us, carrying long guns. Looked like shotguns."
Alyssa's breath hitched loudly in the quiet bank, her eyes darting in horror between Aaron and Kenzie.
"That's why I grabbed you and yelled to run," Aaron continued, rubbing a dirty hand aggressively over his exhausted face. "Think about it, Lyss. A heavy, armored rig like that is basically a rolling fortress. Out here, people will kill for it. If that driver had tapped his brakes to wait for Kenzie to climb up, he would've been a sitting duck. Those guys were lining up to blow the driver's head off and take the keys. He didn't abandon her out of panic. He just didn't want his people slaughtered."
Kenzie swallowed the sharp, burning glass in her throat. She looked down at the marble floor, staring at her scuffed boots.
"He saved them," Kenzie whispered. "I... I understand why he did it."
She really did. The math was cruel, but simple. Ethan had sacrificed the straggler to ensure the rest of the cabin survived.
But logically knowing the math absolutely didn't soften the bleeding ache in her chest. It didn't stop the suffocating reality that when the chips were down, she was the one who was entirely, utterly disposable.
Kenzie stood up from the cold floor, her legs miraculously steady, and gripped the straps of the duffel bag tightly. She didn't know how to survive this new, hollow version of herself, or how she was going to get to a shed in Richmond Hill.
All she knew was that she was a ghost now. And ghosts didn't have the luxury of crying.
Wednesday, December 10, 2025, 8:28 AM
Countdown to Extraction: 66 Hours, 13 Minutes Remaining