The Escape didn’t accelerate; it made empty threats.
Brice pressed the gas, and the wounded SUV lurched forward with the enthusiasm of a man sprinting on a full Thanksgiving stomach. Duct tape slapped the hood in ugly gray strips. The solar panel vibrated violently, threatening to peel off and fly into the apocalypse like a very expensive Frisbee.
“Stay with me,” Brice muttered.
The Ford coughed.
“I’m talking to both of us.”
The frontage road curved, revealing Interstate 5 below. It wasn’t traffic anymore. It was a graveyard. Cars sat crooked across lanes. Semis jackknifed into concrete dividers. Gutted suitcases bled clothes across the asphalt like bright little flags of surrender. Survivors wandered the wreckage—some bleeding, some running, most standing perfectly still, their minds lagging behind in the old world.
Above them, the blue veins in the sky pulsed.
Not bright like before.
Alive.
Brice eased off the gas. The Escape rolled down the slope in unhappy jerks, the engine knocking with a rhythm that belonged in a courtroom as evidence.
“Don’t start that,” he told the dashboard. “We haven’t reached the part where you die dramatically. Save it for the sequel.”
A woman staggered across the shoulder ahead, blood leaking through her fingers. She looked at Brice’s moving SUV like it was a miracle.
“Help!” she screamed.
Brice flinched, his foot hovering over the brake.
Then a sickening crunch echoed down the highway. Something slammed into a white SUV, rocking it hard on its suspension. The woman turned toward the sound, forgetting Brice entirely.
So did Brice.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The white SUV was crushed against a dead sedan. A bleeding father crouched behind the driver’s door, eyes locked on the shape stalking toward him.
Brice’s brain tried to be polite.
Man.
It offered the word, hoping to make the shape less wrong.
But the thing in the torn business suit wasn’t a man anymore. Its fingers had stretched past anything human, joints snapping backward at impossible angles. Black veins crawled beneath its skin, pulsing in time with the ugly blue sky.
The creature slammed both elongated hands into the white SUV.
Metal buckled.
Inside the car, a child cried.
“Nope,” Brice whispered, his stomach tightening. “Nope, nope, nope. I am absolutely not qualified for whatever that is.”
The creature’s head didn’t turn; it twitched, like a puppeteer yanking a string. It locked onto the crying child and smiled.
The expression was wide, wet, and empty—the look of something that had just discovered hunger and made it a personality.
The father yanked the rear door open. “Get out! Baby, run!”
A little girl tumbled onto the asphalt.
Pink sneakers.
Blue jacket.
A tiny backpack hung off one shoulder, because childhood apparently didn’t get a two-week notice before the apocalypse.
She hit the ground and froze.
The creature dropped onto all fours.
Brice’s brain offered a bulleted list of highly reasonable suggestions: keep driving, turn around, find literally anyone younger, stronger, or better insured.
He had no weapon in his hand, no power, no working phone, and zero responsibility for a stranger’s kid.
The little girl whimpered.
“Oh, hell no,” Brice grunted.
The words bypassed his brain.
So did his foot.
He slammed the gas.
The Escape choked, surged, and howled with insult. Brice threaded the SUV through a gap between two dead cars, clipping a side mirror and bouncing hard enough to rattle his teeth.
“Sorry!” he yelled to a car that was very much empty.
The creature snapped its head toward the noise. For one second, black eyes locked onto Brice through the dirty windshield.
The look hit him like ice water.
No fear.
No confusion.
Just appetite.
The Ford shuddered and lost speed.
“No, no, no,” Brice growled, slapping the dashboard. “Do not make me walk into my bad decisions.”
The engine caught, rolling another twenty feet before Brice slammed the gearshift into park. He yanked open the glove compartment, finding nothing but napkins and old registration papers.
“Perfect. Going to defeat evil with DMV paperwork.”
The father reached for the frozen girl. “Run to me!”
She was locked in shock. Brice knew the look—the body freezing because the mind couldn’t pick a direction.
He hated that he knew it.
He hated even more that his hand was already reaching for the rusty tire iron wedged beside his seat.
Outside, the creature took one long, clicking step toward the girl.
Brice looked at the iron bar in his hand.
Then he looked at the two-ton block of dying American steel surrounding him.
His brain finally caught up to his body and filed a formal complaint.
“Right,” Brice muttered. “That is extremely stupid.”
The girl sobbed.
The complaint was denied.
Brice shoved the tire iron back beside the driver’s seat, threw himself fully behind the wheel, and grabbed the gearshift.
The creature lunged.
Not at Brice.
At the girl.
Behind the overturned sedan, the father opened his mouth and screamed.
“RUN!”
Brice slammed the Escape into drive.
The wounded Ford hesitated for half a second, like even it wanted to question the decision.
Brice stomped the gas harder.
“Move, motherfucker.”
The engine caught with an ugly roar.
The duct-taped solar panel flapped wildly on the hood. The whole SUV lurched forward, tires spitting gravel, metal screaming, dashboard flickering like it was praying in a language Brice didn’t understand.
The creature’s black eyes snapped toward him.
Too late.
Brice clenched his teeth.
The Escape slammed into the monster.
Metal met flesh with a wet, sickening crunch.
Black blood exploded across the windshield.
And the world disappeared behind it.