By the end of the first week, Brice had almost forgotten what normal felt like.
Almost.
Haven moved with a rhythm that was almost convincing. Breakfast at sunrise. Work assignments right after. Scavenging teams slipped out through the gate while repair crews spread across the walls. Hammers rang against posts. Guards changed shifts without being told twice. Children laughed between garden rows like the world outside the fence had not turned into teeth, claws, hunger, and smoke.
For the first time since the Blue Wave, life had a pulse again.
That was what bothered Brice.
A pulse meant a body.
And bodies could hide infections.
He and Brian were hauling fence posts toward the east wall, where a section of reinforced barrier still leaned outward from last week’s breach. The timber was rough, heavy, and full of splinters. Brice had one post balanced on his shoulder, and every step made his ankle remind him that jumping out of a second-story window had been a bold, stupid life choice.
Brian, naturally, carried three.
The big man had the posts balanced across his back like they were broom handles, sweat shining across his arms, expression smug enough to count as a war crime.
“You know,” Brian said, glancing over with a grin, “I’ve been thinking.”
Brice groaned. “God help us. I can hear the gears grinding from here.”
“I think I figured out why you’re only carrying one post.”
“Because I value spinal alignment?”
“No. Safety measure.” Brian nodded seriously. “Like training wheels, but for lumber. Keeps you from tipping over and crushing your fragile ego.”
Brice stopped mid-step and gave him a dead stare. “Was that supposed to be a joke, or are you suffering from oxygen deprivation?”
“It’s a clinical critique of your core strength. Don’t take it personally. Well, take it personally, but quietly.”
A few nearby workers laughed.
Brice pointed at them with mock betrayal. “That’s not funny. You all saw me get blown up, right? I’m recovering. There should be sympathy. Possibly a parade.”
Brian snorted. “The explosion was days ago. Walk it off.”
“Mom said you’re supposed to stop picking on me.”
“Mom also told you to stop tattling, yet here we are.”
Tom, one of the older workers, leaned on his shovel and barked a laugh. His hands looked like cured leather, and his face had the permanent squint of a man who had survived too many bad years before the apocalypse even got started.
“You two brothers?” Tom asked. “You’ve got that ‘I’ve been waiting twenty years to kill you in your sleep’ energy.”
Brian answered without missing a beat. “Might as well be. I’ve been profoundly disappointed in him for at least nineteen of those years. First year doesn’t count. He was still learning to walk.”
Brice sighed and shifted the post on his shoulder. “See what I deal with? It’s a miracle I haven’t wandered into the wasteland just for some peace and quiet.”
“I’d follow you,” Brian said. “I’d have to. You’d get lost before you hit the main road.”
“You’re very lucky I’m injured.”
“You’re always injured.”
“That’s called character development.”
They reached the unfinished section of wall. Tom pointed toward a support trench cut deep into the dirt.
“Set them there,” he said. “Level and deep. Try to make it look like you boys earned breakfast.”
Brian dropped all three posts into place with one hand.
Tom stared.
Then he stared harder.
“You know,” the old man said slowly, “most people make two trips for those.”
Brian leaned against one of the posts, completely unbothered. “I hate cardio. I’m an efficiency expert.”
Brice smirked. “Liar. You wanted everyone to watch the gun show.”
“It worked. Look at Tom’s face. He’s reconsidering his entire physical existence.”
Tom muttered something about show-offs and went back to measuring the trench.
The morning passed under a pale, sun-blurred sky. Brice measured supports. Brian drove stakes into the earth with a sledgehammer, every strike booming across the camp like a slow drumbeat. The sound drew children from the cabins. They watched from a safe distance, wide-eyed, whispering among themselves.
Brice noticed how quickly the adults noticed them noticing.
One woman called her daughter back before the girl could wander too close. A guard on the wall glanced down, then away. Not alarmed. Not angry.
Just aware.
Everyone in Haven seemed aware of everything.
A little boy no older than eight stepped forward anyway. He clutched a baseball glove against his chest. The leather was cracked, faded, and much too big for his hand.
“Mister Brice?”
Brice lowered the level and knelt, ignoring the pinch in his ankle. “Yeah, buddy?”
The boy held up a scuffed baseball. “Can you play catch?”
Before Brice could answer, Brian leaned on his sledgehammer with grave seriousness. “Don’t do it, kid. He’s terrible. Hand-eye coordination of a concussed jellyfish.”
The boy blinked. “Why?”
Brian lowered his voice. “He once threw a football through Mrs. Jenkins’ kitchen window. Then he did it again. Whole neighborhood still talks about it. Fine china was lost. Good people cried.”
Brice pointed at him. “The second one was a tactical accident.”
“It was emotional,” Brian said. “You were feeling your feelings. The window paid the price.”
The boy giggled, and the sound hit Brice harder than expected. Small. Bright. Fragile.
The kind of sound the world should have protected better.
“My friend Tommy used to play catch with me,” the boy said.
Brice’s smile softened. “Where’s Tommy now?”
The boy looked down and rubbed one dirty sneaker against the dirt.
“I don’t know. Father Elias said Tommy’s family left for another settlement. He said Tommy didn’t get to say goodbye.”
The words landed quietly.
Too quietly.
Brice kept the smile on his face, but something cold slid under his ribs.
“Yeah?” he said gently. “That’s rough, buddy.”
The boy nodded. “I miss him.”
Brice turned the baseball in his hand. It was worn smooth from use. Real use. Not decoration. Not a prop.
“Well,” Brice said, forcing warmth into his voice, “I can’t replace Tommy. But I can make sure your arm doesn’t get rusty.”
For twenty minutes, the apocalypse backed off.
There was only the slap of the ball against leather, the smell of churned dirt, and the boy laughing every time Brice pretended a bad throw had nearly killed him. Brian eventually joined in, because apparently ruining quiet moments was part of his spiritual calling.
His first throw sailed over Brice’s head, cleared the twelve-foot fence, and vanished into the dead grass beyond the perimeter.
Everyone froze.
Brian looked around with exaggerated innocence.
“…I regret nothing.”
Brice threw both hands up. “Brian. That ball had a family.”
The boy collapsed into the dirt laughing, clutching his stomach. Even Tom wheezed behind one hand.
A guard climbed down from the wall, retrieved the ball with a long metal hook, and tossed it back over with the exhausted expression of a man who had seen too much stupidity to fear monsters anymore.
“Next time,” the guard said, “aim for the person, not the horizon.”
Brian caught the ball and nodded solemnly. “Feedback received.”
Brice leaned toward the boy. “Never learn from him.”
“I’m a role model,” Brian said.
“You’re a warning label.”
The boy laughed again.
Brice laughed too.
And for one clean second, he almost let himself believe in it.
Almost.
Because when the boy ran back toward the cabins, Brice saw where his eyes went first.
Not to his mother.
Not to the dinner tables.
To the dark row of empty cabins on the far side of the dirt road.
The ones nobody used anymore.
The ones people kept walking past without looking at directly.
By evening, Haven glowed.
Lanterns hummed to life along the fence. Smoke curled from cooking fires. Fresh bread cooled under cloth. Bowls of stew moved down the long tables. People laughed, traded stories, thanked one another, passed food to children first.
It should have felt beautiful.
Part of it did.
That was the problem.
Beautiful things made good traps.
The little boy found Brice again near the end of dinner, baseball glove tucked under one arm.
“Thanks for playing with me.”
“Anytime,” Brice said.
The boy hesitated. His face turned toward the empty cabins.
“Do you think Tommy’s having fun where he went?”
Brice followed his gaze.
The cabins sat dark and still. No lanterns. No voices. No laundry lines. No tools by the doors. Nothing left behind except silence.
A family leaving in a hurry should leave mess.
A family leaving peacefully should say goodbye.
Tommy’s family had done neither.
Brice looked back at the boy and forced a smile that felt thin enough to crack.
“I hope so, kid. I really do.”
The boy accepted the lie because children had to accept the lies adults gave them. Then he ran back to his mother, bouncing the ball against his glove like the world still had rules.
Brice watched him go.
Then his eyes drifted beyond the cabins.
Past the gardens.
Past the second fence.
To the chained warehouse standing at the rear of Haven.
No windows. Heavy steel doors. Rusted chain across the handles. One guard posted outside, straight-backed and still as a statue.
Brian came up beside him, wiping grease from his hands. His voice was lower now. No joke in it.
“What?”
Brice didn’t answer right away.
The memory of that muffled clang from the night before moved through his mind again.
Metal against metal.
A voice too faint to prove.
A guard who hadn’t reacted.
A boy whose best friend had vanished without goodbye.
Brian followed his stare. “You thinking about that storage building again?”
Brice’s jaw tightened.
“I’m thinking about Tommy.”
Brian said nothing.
That was answer enough.
Brice looked over the camp. The smiling faces. The warm bread. The laughing children. Father Elias speaking softly near the fire, one hand resting on a man’s shoulder like a blessing.
Everything had a rhythm here.
Too steady.
Too practiced.
Too clean.
Brice looked back at the warehouse.
“People leave,” he murmured. “That happens.”
Brian’s eyes narrowed. “But?”
Brice watched the guard by the chained doors. The man didn’t move. Didn’t scratch his face. Didn’t shift his weight. Didn’t look bored. He just stood there, staring outward, as if the building behind him did not exist.
Brice’s voice dropped lower.
“But people don’t leave like ghosts.”
The fire crackled behind them. Laughter rose from the tables. Somewhere nearby, the little boy threw the baseball into his glove again.
Thwap.
Thwap.
Thwap.
Brice didn’t look away from the warehouse.
Haven had a rhythm.
And now he was starting to hear what beat underneath it