When he slept, he had confused nightmares of inky darkness coming to life and grabbing at the soles of his feet. Vague shapes formed in gray mist all around him, beckoning to him, but he couldn’t move. The floor had become like tar, sucking him deeper the more he tried to lift his feet. His breath caught in his throat and his breathing became frantic, but still he didn’t wake, even as he finally became cognizant that he was dreaming.

A soft touch on his shoulder jolted him into consciousness, however. He came out of the dream like a man possessed, all gasping breaths and sweeping eyes. His focus soon caught on Lexi, her hand raised–palm open–and body turned defensively away from him.

“You alright there? You started thrashing in your sleep. Kicked the shit out of Noah,” she said. At the comment, Lysander turned to find Noah glaring at him and rubbing his shin.

“Oh uh, sorry. I was having a nightmare, I guess,” he muttered blearily. Their cramped quarters were pitch dark, and Lysander guessed they had snuffed out the candles after he fell asleep. He had no way to gauge what time it was, but he did register the presence of someone at the door.

“Morning, kids. Sorry to get you up so early, but we gotta get to talking before work starts for the day,” Taj apologized, rapping a knuckle against the doorframe. The sky behind him still sparkled with stars, and only the barest hint of sunrise painted the distant horizon. “I was up later than I care to admit talking things over with the commune. Can’t say it came as much of a surprise that pretty much everyone was against working with you.”

The words torpedoed through Lysander’s chest like an arrow. He hadn’t even made his case well, and they were already being told no. Whatever chance he thought he had, he had squandered it. “Is there–is there anything I can say or do to maybe help you reconsider?”

Taj scratched his cheek and looked at him sympathetically. “Look, kid, I like to think of myself as a giving man, but even I am hard pressed to find any reason why we should help out the city. We’ve lost too many to the sickness. Triz is the only person I’ve got left from before, and I’ll be damned if I let the city try to pull her away too somehow. Far as I can tell, they ain’t got nothing we need anyways. Hard to trade if only one party gets something out of it.”

Lysander recalled the graveyard he saw the day before, the rows and rows of stones outnumbering even the amount of people he had seen crowded around when they arrived. “That’s…true,” Lysander muttered, his voice trailing off, “I can’t imagine you really need money out here.”

“Nah, we trade for the things we need. Got a lot of the building done out here by hiring on some guys from the local camps. Paid them in potatoes,” Taj admitted with a chuckle. “Anyways, I’m sorry that this is how it ends, but I can send ya off with some food to get ya home.” He held out a hand sewn satchel that Lexi took. “It’s full of some carrots and celery that we chopped for you along with some fruit. Just ready to eat stuff since I figure you’re not gonna want to stop much.” At this, he cast a glance at Tessa, who had begun to look a bit like a deflated balloon, but she still managed a small smile at Taj.

Imagining Taj or Beatriz or both staying up and prepping food for them sent a jolt of gratitude through Lysander even as he tried to maintain his bitterness over their denial. “Thank you,” he managed through the hopelessness that had settled like an old blanket over him.

Groaning, Taj shook his head, “Alright, look, we might not be able to help you out, but I might know someone who can. You got a map?”

It took a moment for the group to fully process what he said, but then Lexi elbowed Noah who shot into action at the abuse. He fumbled into his bag and pulled out the map he had been using to guide them, though he looked reluctant to pass it over. Stepping farther into the shed, Taj sidled up next to Noah and used his finger to draw a circle over most of the northeastern swathe of the state. “Most of this land has been struck by the same…whatever it is that our farm has been blessed with, so lots of communes like ours have cropped up in this area. Now, I know most of ‘em wouldn’t be half as nice as us if you came knocking, but I do know of a guy who heads up a commune closer to the lake who might be easier to persuade. I went out there about a year ago on a tour of the other communes to get a good idea of how leadership worked, and he talked a lot about family he still had in the city, so maybe you could go back and broker a deal with your city leaders to maybe let him meet with them in exchange for some aid, ya feel? Just a thought, but if you do decide to try it out, you can find him here.” He pointed at an area close to the border to Pennsylvania and only a few miles south of the lake.

Having another avenue to attempt energized Lysander, and he saw Lexi smiling over at him. “This is great! Thank you, Taj,” she effused.

“Yeah, this helps a lot,” Lysander added.

“Hey, I know it’s asking a lot when you just gave us a huge tip, but I was wondering if I could ask one more thing?” Ramon asked.

“Might as well at this point,” Taj allowed.

“You wouldn’t happen to know of any pharmacies around here that might have an untapped stash?”

“Unfortunately not, but I probably wouldn’t share that with you if I did know.” Given the rarity of medications, Lysander could hardly blame him for the bluntness of his response.

“Yeah, figured. Had to try though,” Ramon groaned.

“Well, if that’s all, I gotta head out and get started in the field. Plants don’t tend to water themselves, though it wouldn’t surprise me if they started to,” Taj chuckled to himself and guided them from their tiny temporary shelter. “Good luck with everything. I really do hope it works out for y’all.”

And with that, they were cast adrift once more into the wilderness. All of them were now covered in a thin layer of dust from sleeping on the bare ground, and Lysander could feel it crusting in his hair, making his scalp itch. As they made their way back through the field of wildflowers, he couldn’t help but feel like they looked like a small contingent of zombies shuffling away. Lexi still seemed in high spirits as she took the lead, but the rest of them lagged significantly and the small talk dried up as the sun finally crested the horizon and greeted the land.

Lysander had a feeling akin to whiplash. Every idea he came up with continued to be met with failure, and yet a new potential solution would present itself in the eleventh hour. He started to wonder if maybe he should just stop being the idea man, though he didn’t see anyone else popping up to relieve him of the duty. He was exhausted, bodily and mentally, and he would happily give up his responsibilities to someone else, preferably someone wiser and older than him. The little group that trudged along with him was all that was keeping him from succumbing to complete inaction. As soon as he felt even the smallest inkling of hopelessness or anxiety, one of them appeared to prop him up and keep him on the course. Honestly, he was both grateful and resentful of it, a mixture that swirled unpleasantly somewhere below his breastbone. When he got home, more work awaited him. Between helping Miria with her ideas to buy them time and dodging Anthony while they planned out their next venture out of the city, he knew rest was still far out of reach. He would probably have to figure out how to get his parents’ home usable for their purposes. Lexi or Noah could maybe figure it out, the same way they somehow got into the Campbell estate without being seen. He would set them to that task before he left for work. At the very least, it would keep them busy while he was out.

Once they reached the forest, they diverged from the path they had taken to the farm and met up with a tiny two lane road that had been reduced to a wide dirt path. The forest encroached on either side, but no plants had overtaken it quite yet, excepting some weeds that sprouted here and there amidst the brown. Signs of former human civilization cropped up as they progressed–homes and wooden utility poles jutted up on either side of them, though the thick fibrous cables that once carried electricity had disappeared. Eventually, they arrived in the remnants of a small town, a sort of ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ sort of place that consisted of a single intersection, a post office, and a volunteer fire department. All the buildings had seen better days as brick crumbled and exposed interior rooms that were visibly littered with fallen leaves and moss. At the corner of the intersection, Noah pointed to one of the many old store fronts. The large window that marked a majority of the front face had shattered and inside they could see a stretch of a counter with half a dozen metal stools bolted in front of it against the left wall. In the very back, shrouded in shadows, another counter stood before another panel of glass, this one guarding what looked like rows of shelves.

“It’s an old soda fountain. This town is so tiny, there might be some stuff left in the pharmacy back there,” Noah informed them.

“Shit, you think?” Ramon asked excitedly, already moving closer to it. Tessa scrambled to keep up with him.

“I mean, don’t get your hopes too high, but there’s a better chance here than at some commercial pharmacy.”

“Thanks, man,” Ramon replied, stepping over the low wall where the window once stood into the store.

As they entered, Lysander realized that the soda fountain was larger than he had originally thought. The counter for drinks had hidden where this room met with the one next door, extending the shop with a large open doorway. In the second room, Lysander spotted a collection of what looked like antique furniture and homegoods for sale before Ramon forced him away to continue to the back. Once they got closer, Lysander could see that the pharmacy had definitely been ransacked at least once before as bottles of pills lay strewn about and someone had smashed the pane of glass above the locked security door to get inside. Still, it appeared like there was still something to be found because it wasn’t entirely empty, so Ramon soldiered on with the rest of them in tow.

As Ramon poked around, Lysander stood on the edge of Tessa’s bubble just outside the pharmacy door and looked at the rest of the interior. The soda fountain had probably been quite charming before the world ended. Someone had taken a lot of care to set up a 1950s theme throughout, with old advertisements posted along the walls between neons that would have lit the place in pastels. Displays of candies ran along the wall opposite the soda counter, though much of the actual candy was gone from the multitudes of glass jars.

From behind him, Lysander heard Ramon mutter a quick “hell yes”, but his attention was caught by Lexi who had gone behind the soda counter to explore only to halt her actions suddenly. In the extended shop space, a rustling sound came, subtle but loud enough for even Lysander to pick up on. His spine rocketed into alignment, stiffness overcoming his shoulders and neck.

Glancing over at their group still crowded around the pharmacy, Lexi crept closer to the open doorway and pulled out her daggers with a wince. She hadn’t handled much of anything since she bruised them on their first day, and Lysander could see that forming her hands into fists pained her.

Breathing in once, Lexi called out, “Hello?”

At the sound of her voice, whatever it was stopped moving around and silence descended over all of them. Ramon seemed to have picked up on the energies and had slung his now bulging pack back over his shoulder and joined Lysander at the entrance. Narrowing her eyes, Lexi sidled to the edge of the opening, but as soon as she slid her foot closer, a hand rocketed out of the shadows trying to grab her arm.

Immediately alert, she swiped at the extended arm with her right dagger, keeping the left close to her chest in a defensive stance. Whoever it was in the darkness had committed too much to the initial attack and couldn’t retract the arm in time to avoid a long slice across the forearm. Hissing in pain, the full body of a man stepped out. He looked bedraggled with long greasy hair sticking to his face and neck and a wild unkempt beard covered the majority of his face. His clothes clung to his body by the barest fibers, and patches of his skin showed through large gaping holes in his shirt and jeans. His feet were also uncovered and his toenails looked too long and jagged while the skin appeared scarred and unwashed.

“We don’t want any trouble,” Noah attempted from the back of the room near the candy counters.

As the man opened his mouth to reply, his jaw popped audibly. “That’s what they always say,” he croaked, his voice dusty from disuse. The small hints of his teeth that showed through were yellow and seemed unnaturally pointy. He reminded Lysander of a feral dog, especially with how hunched his posture was. He also seemed extremely unconcerned with the wound on his arm, allowing the blood to drip down his palm and fingers and pool onto the floor near his feet.

Noah inhaled to continue diffusing the situation, but before he could even make a noise, the man leapt forward preternaturally fast around Lexi toward Noah. A startled expletive escaped Lysander, but Lexi was already in motion, wrapping her arm around the man as he passed her. The pair of them went down in a heap, and the dagger in Lexi’s right hand clattered across the floorboards as her arm got trapped beneath him. The man was up before Lysander could even blink though, and Lexi was fast, but he was faster, shoving her away and jumping to his feet. She followed, moving to stab into his back, but he flipped back around and caught her hand, squeezing her fist and pressing the hilt deeper into the bruise on her palm. She let out a groan and dropped her weapon, which he kicked away before launching his palm into her gut. He didn’t look especially strong with how wiry he was, but he moved at such a speed that the momentum alone pushed her away and into a display of antiques in the other room.

However, instead of finishing with Lexi, the man once more turned to Noah, who looked shaken for the first time in Lysander’s memory, his eyes focused on Lexi as she struggled back to her feet among the wreckage of what used to be a collection of porcelain figurines. The man seemed hellbent on killing Noah first as though by talking, Noah had offended him somehow. With a grimace bearing more of his sharpened teeth, he launched forward.

At the same moment, Lysander felt a tug on his shirt, and Tessa’s voice piped up from behind him, “Lysander…Ramon,” she managed to get out, her voice growing weaker from days without sleep. Startled, he turned and saw Ramon running out of the protection of Tessa’s bubble. Lysander reached out to grab him, but Ramon slipped away and left him gripping only air.

With a yell, Ramon rammed into the man from the side. He had clearly not expected it, having written off their smaller group by the pharmacy, and Ramon took him down. On the floor, the pair wrestled with Ramon having the advantage of more mass. In the contest of strength, Ramon was clearly winning, and the man couldn’t use his impossible speed with Ramon holding him tight to the floor. “What the hell’s your problem, bro?” Ramon grunted between labored breaths.

“Are you crazy?” Noah shouted, his voice strained with panic.

With a snarl, the man spit into Ramon’s face, a glob of spit striking his cheek and sliding thickly down his chin. “Ah, fucking hell, man, that’s nasty,” Ramon groaned but maintained his grip on the thrashing man.

While the men wrestled, Lexi recovered and scooped up one of her daggers and rushed over. A look of cold fury painted her face and she appeared truly frightening for the first time since she had confessed to killing Joseph. Kneeling next to Ramon, she grabbed the stringy bits of hair on the crown of the man’s head, pulling his head down and exposing his throat. With her other hand, she sliced cleanly through his carotid, blood spilling out and creating a large pool faster than Lysander thought possible.

He was dead within moments, a life snuffed out faster than any of them could even speak.

Shakily, Ramon dismounted him, his knuckles and pants now coated in blood. “Jesus fuck, Red, you couldn’t have waited for me to move first?”

“Ramon, get back over here,” Lysander called out. It was all he could think to say.

Ramon seemed to not hear him, his eyes focused only on his own hands, which visibly shook. Tessa pressed into Lysander’s back, and he walked forward realizing he had been blocking her in. They moved closer to Ramon, but before they made it all the way, Noah had stalked over to Ramon and gripped the collar of his shirt, dragging him backwards. “Get back in the bubble before you die, you lunatic,” Noah grumbled. With a final shove, he pushed Ramon back into the confines of Tessa’s barrier.

Still in shock, Ramon allowed himself to be manhandled, and the group exited the soda fountain through the broken window. No one spoke as they began the walk back to the city once more.

As they crossed out of the downtown area, such as it was, Lexi spoke up, “He wasn’t a good man. I think he might have killed anyone who tried to loot that place from what he said.”

“Like that makes me feel better,” Ramon replied immediately having understood that her statement had been a fumbling attempt to cheer him up.

“It made me feel better, back when this stuff used to affect me,” she admitted.

“Did they replace your heart with a computer chip in the meantime?” Ramon scoffed.

Glancing back at him, she said quietly, “No, I just got used to it I guess.”

“Fantastic,” Ramon replied, his voice dripping sarcasm.

“Are you feeling okay?” Lysander cut in, his stomach churning with both worry for his friend and the death of yet another person on his conscience.

Sighing, Ramon pushed his thick black hair back from his face. “Physically, yeah. Mentally, not even a little.”

“You took in a lot of the Spread when you left the bubble, so if you start to feel ill at all, there is cause for some concern,” Tessa remarked robotically, all vibrancy drained along with her energy.

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t about to let Noah eat shit. Guess we’ll see what happens.”

Noah remained uncharacteristically silent, seemingly wrapped in his own thoughts.

“Well, I appreciate the assist,” Lexi said, “Fucker must’ve seen my bandages and guessed I was wounded.”

None of them replied, and the rest of the day passed with the group silent and stilted.