The embankment narrowed as the reservoir curved east. The grass bowed under dew that soaked their boots, each step leaving dark prints that glistened before fading back into anonymity. Water lay to their left, glass-smooth, a sky's mirror still undecided about color. To their right, pines hunched over the slope, their branches whispering in the faint breeze that had survived the night.
Margo led, steps even, breath measured, her palm still inked with the half-faded ear. Gavin kept close, eyes shifting between the grass underfoot and the treeline. Riley trailed with the brick bag, every strap creaking like a nervous throat. Madison brought up the rear, knife low, head swinging in arcs that suggested he'd rather carry the whole horizon on his shoulders.
The sun had not yet climbed but had started to think about it. Light seeped into the world by increments, lifting detail out of shadow: the ripple of fish near the surface, the frost edge along a stalk of grass, the way Madison's breath smoked in quick bursts that betrayed nerves.
"Tell me again why we're not dead yet," he muttered.
"Because we kept the rules," Margo said. "And because luck hasn't come to collect."
They walked another half-mile in silence before the embankment ended in concrete stairs that dropped to a service road. A sign leaned drunkenly at the bottom, its paint peeling: MAINTENANCE VEHICLES ONLY. The arrow pointed toward a junction where two county roads met, one vanishing into trees, the other stretching flat and featureless west.
"The crossroads," Margo whispered. "Left to the ghost subdivision. Right to the co-op."
"Subdivisions mean houses," Riley said. "Houses mean cover."
"Or corpses," Madison muttered. "Too many walls, too many doors. I like shelves better. Shelves don't pretend."
"What about you?" Margo asked Gavin.
He studied the fork. The left road sloped upward between half-cleared lots where signs promised FUTURE HOMES STARTING IN THE 300s. The boards looked gray now, slogans eaten by weather. The right road carried power poles that leaned but still held wires, a line that might still lead to a co-op stocked with light and fuel.
He felt the weight of choice the way he used to feel third down—no right answer, only angles.
"Right," he said. "The co-op buys us light. And maybe gas. Shelves don't lie."
Margo nodded once. "Right, then. Even feet."
They descended the stairs. The concrete sang under boots. On the last step, Riley froze, eyes on the grass. "Wait."
Something had bent the blades crosswise, not in one place but in a pattern. Small arcs, curved, overlapping like ribs. She knelt and touched the soil. Moisture still clung, but the earth beneath was dry.
"Not deer," she said. "Not us. Too light for cattle."
"Then what?" Madison asked.
Riley didn't answer. Her fingers trembled, tracing the arcs. "Practice," she whispered. "Something practiced circles here."
The wind shifted. From the trees came a faint, high whistle—two notes, clean, rising and falling. Not bird. Too precise. Too… rehearsed.
Margo raised her hand, palm open, ear drawn. Everyone stilled.
The whistle came again, closer, then stopped as if waiting for applause.
"Move," Margo said.
They took the right road. The co-op waited a mile on, its silhouette rising above chain-link fencing topped with half-dead barbed wire. The building squatted low and broad, its facade painted corporate beige, the letters of its name faded to shadows.
The lot was empty. No cars. No movement. But the gate hung open, chain clipped and left swinging like a pendulum.
"That's wrong," Gavin said.
"They wanted us to see it," Margo agreed.
They approached anyway. The wind caught the chain and made it click-click against the fence. Each strike echoed too far. Inside the lot, the ground was littered with paper: receipts, flyers, a child's drawing folded once and blown flat.
"Don't like it," Madison growled.
"No one does," Margo said. She touched the gate, pushed it open wider, and let it complain loud enough that whatever waited already knew they were here.
Inside, the co-op doors yawned. The glass had been covered in plywood, spray-painted with the words SUPPLY TAKEN in thick black. Beneath, someone had scrawled in red: BUT THE SHELVES STILL TALK.
They stood a moment, listening. The silence inside wasn't empty—it pulsed. Like a throat clearing, like someone rehearsing the first syllable of a word they hadn't decided to say.
"Light or lies," Gavin whispered.
"Only one way to find out," Margo said, and stepped across the threshold.