Ember and Grace

What's Out There

Morning came slow and gray through the cracked front window.

Noah had not slept.

Since then He sat on an overturned crate near the register, flashlight resting on his knee, looking the door like it might give way any second even though nothing had hit it in the last four hours.

Grace was pacing near the back of the store, arms crossed, jaw tight. She had been quiet since sunrise, which Noah had already learned in one night wasn't like her.

We have water for maybe two days, Noah said, more to break the silence than anything.

Food a little longer if we ration it right.

I don't care about the food.

Grace stop pacing and looked at him. My neighbor's alone in that house.

She's sick, Noah. She can't even get to the bathroom on her own, and I left her there because I needed cigarettes and painkillers for her fever.

You did not know this was going to happen right ?

Doesn't matter.

She's still there.

Grace grabbed her jacket off the counter.

I'm going to check on her.

Noah stood up fast. You saw what out there last night.

You can't just walk out that door.

Watch me.

I'm not saying don't go. He kept his voice level, the same tone he used with customers who came in yelling about expired coupons.

I'm saying we go smart. We look first. We plan a route. We don't just open the door and run.

Grace stared at him for a second, some of the anger draining out of her face, replaced by something closer to surprise. She had expected him to either argue harder or back down completely. He had done neither.

Fine, she said.

Look, then. But we're going soon.

They moved to the side window, the one facing the alley instead of the parking lot. Noah eased the blinds open an inch. The alley was empty. No movement, no shapes standing in doorways, nothing but a knocked-over trash can and a stray cat picking through spilled garbage like nothing in the world had changed.

Something banged against the front window glass, hard, sudden. Both of them dropped low on instinct.

Not the front door. The window. Someone was outside, pounding a fist against the cracked glass, this time the rhythm was different frantic, uneven, human panic instead of the slow relentless force from the night before.

Noah crept toward the window, staying low, and looked up through the c***k in the glass. A boy stood outside, maybe sixteen, blood soaked through his jeans at the knee, eyes wide and darting behind him every few seconds.

Please, the boy said, voice muffled through the glass.

Please, let me in. They are not far behind me.

Grace grabbed Noah's arm. Don't.

It could be a trick. We don't know what these things can do.

He's bleeding. He's scared. That's not a trick." Noah was already moving toward the barricade. Help me move this.

They shifted the shelf unit just enough to c***k the door open, and the boy practically fell inside, scrambling on hands and knees before Noah slammed the door shut behind him and shoved the shelf back into place.

The boy sat against the counter, breathing hard, clutching his leg. Thank you.

Thank you I do appreciate, I thought He stopped, swallowed hard. I thought I was done.

What happened to your leg?

Noah crouched down, opening the first aid kit.

Cut it climbing over a fence. Wasn't them, wasn't a bite or anything, just bad luck.

He winced as Noah pressed gauze against the wound.

I'm Tyler.

Noah said, I'm Noal. This is Grace.

Grace knelt beside them, still tense, watching the door more than the boy.

What are they? The people outside.

What happened to them?

Tyler shook his head slowly. I don't know exactly. Nobody does. But last night, before the power went out, there were trucks. Government trucks, I think, driving slow down the main roads, spraying something into the air. My dad said it was for mosquitoes, some kind of city thing they do every summer. But it wasn't mosquitoes.

You saw it happen? Noah asked, wrapping the gauze tight.

I was outside when it hit. Everybody who was outside during the spray they changed. Fast. Like something just switched off in their heads. No pain, no fear, nothing but aggression. But anybody who was inside, anybody who didn't breathe that stuff in, we're fine. That's why they want inside places. Warmth, cover, whatever i don't know. They don't seem to want that anymore. They just want you.

Grace and Noah exchanged a look. It matched what she'd felt the night before a man who didn't flinch, didn't feel pain, didn't stop.

There's more, Tyler said, voice dropping lower, like even saying it made it more real. Soldiers blocked the highway out of town last night. Not letting anyone through. My uncle tried to drive out this morning, and they turned him back at gunpoint. Somebody said they're not just blocking the road. They're collecting people. Loading them onto trucks.

Collecting them for what?

Grace asked.

Nobody knows. Nobody who got taken has come back to say.

The store went quiet except for the wind pushing against the cracked window. Noah finished tying off the bandage and sat back on his heels, processing it. None of it made sense yet, not fully, but it didn't need to make sense to be true.

My leg's not why I'm out here, Tyler said after a moment. "My little brother's still in our house two streets over. My mom sent me out to find help because our neighbor turned yesterday and now he's outside our door and it won't hold much longer. I need someone with a car, or a way in, He stopped, looking between them, realizing how little he actually had to offer in return.

Grace stood up. I have a car. Two streets over,

you said?

Grace.

Noah's voice was sharp now. We don't know this street. We don't know what's between here and there.

He's got a kid brother locked in a house with one of those things outside the door. What am I supposed to do, sit here and ration soup?

Noah looked at her, then at Tyler, then toward the back of the store where he knew, three miles away, his mother and sister were behind a door with a lock that had never been tested against something like this.

We help him,Noah said. Then we go to my house. My mom's sick, and my sister's alone with her.

Grace nodded once, already grabbing the flashlight off the crate.

They moved the shelf unit aside just enough to slip through one at a time, easing the door shut behind them, stepping out into a street that looked empty and quiet in a way that felt wrong. Tyler pointed the direction, limping fast despite the bandage.

They made it half a block before three shapes stepped out from behind a parked delivery van, heads turning toward them at the exact same moment, like something had alerted all three at once.

They weren't slow. They weren't confused. They started moving straight for Noah, Grace, and Tyler, closing the distance fast, and there was no time left to decide whether running or hiding was the better choice.