One Year After the Outbreak
Florida Panhandle
The sun was just beginning to peek over the treeline, painting the lake in shades of gold and rose. Jimmy Graves sat on the front porch of the cabin, a chipped ceramic mug clutched in his hands, watching the mist burn off the water. The coffee was weak. They'd been stretching the grounds for weeks, but it was hot, and hot was something you be grateful for.
A year. A whole fucking year since the world ended. Since they'd fought off that horde and claimed this cabin as their own. Since they'd started building something that almost resembled a life.
The cabin had changed in those twelve months. What started as a desperate refuge had become something close to a home. The roof had been patched with salvaged shingles. The walls were reinforced with extra lumber. The windows, once just glass, now heavy shutters that could be barred from inside. A garden stretched along the south side, growing beans, tomatoes, potatoes, even some herbs that Jenna had managed to keep alive. Nick had rigged a system of rain barrels and gutters that gave them fresh water even when the well pump acted up. Solar panels, scavenged from an abandoned RV, covered the south-facing roof, providing just enough power for lights and the radio.
It wasn't much. But it was theirs.
Jimmy took a sip of his coffee and let out a long breath. For a moment, just a moment, he could almost pretend things were normal. That the world hadn't ended. That Ashley was inside making breakfast and Nick was getting ready for work and Jenna was just a friend crashing on their couch.
Then he heard the familiar creak of the screen door, and Ashley stepped onto the porch.
She moved differently now than she had a year ago. She was more aware of her body, more confident in what she could do. All those months of running, hunting, hauling water, chopping wood had carved her into something new. Her arms had definition now, muscle showing beneath the skin where soft curves used to be. Her legs were strong from miles of walking and climbing. Her hips had widened slightly from all the physical work, and her ass - which had always been nice-was now fuller, rounder, more purposeful. Even her breasts had changed; the muscle underneath gave them a perkiness they hadn't had before, lifting them just enough to notice. Her jeans fit tighter than they ever had in the old world, hugging every new curve.
She leaned against him, stealing his coffee and taking a sip. "You're up early."
"Couldn't sleep."
"Liar." She handed the mug back. "You never sleep."
He smiled despite himself. "Occupational hazard."
They stood in comfortable silence, watching the sun climb. Inside, they could hear Nick moving around the kitchen, the clatter of pans as he made breakfast. Jenna was still asleep in the smaller bedroom.
"Another year," Ashley said quietly.
"Another year?"
"You think we'll make it another one?"
Jimmy thought about it. About the close calls, the near misses, the endless stream of threats that never seemed to stop. About the radio messages from Marcus, growing fainter every month. About the strange flashes he still got sometimes, images of places he'd never been, faces he'd never seen.
"Yeah," he said finally. "I think we will."
Breakfast was venison jerky and the last of the oatmeal, stretched thin to feed four people. They ate around the small kitchen table, the morning light streaming through the windows, making the dust mites dance.
Nick sat across from Jenna, their knees touching under the table in a way that was definitely not accidental. Jenna's shirt was untucked, the top few buttons undone, revealing a strip of bare skin and the edge of her bra. Her hair was a mess, and there was a small mark on her neck that everyone pretended not to see. She caught Jimmy looking and had the decency to blush, but she didn't bother fixing her shirt.
Ashley raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
After breakfast, they held their usual council of war. A ritual they'd developed over the past year. Every few days, they'd sit down and talk about what they had, what they needed, and what threats they'd spotted.
Jimmy went first. "Ammo's getting low. Rifle rounds, mostly. Shotgun shells, too. Maybe two hundred rounds total between all of us."
Ashley nodded. "Medical supplies are the bigger concern. I'm almost out of antibiotics. Bandages are low. If someone gets infected, we're fucked."
Nick nodded, "Food's okay for now. The garden's producing, and we've got maybe another month of canned stuff."
Jenna spoke last. "Water's fine. The rain barrels are full. But I saw something yesterday, when I was checking the perimeter. Tracks. Humans tracks, not deer. Fresh too."
The table went quiet.
"Hostiles?" Ashley asked.
"Could be. Or could be survivors passing through." Jenna shrugged. "Either way, they were close. Within a mile."
Jimmy frowned. "Why didn't you mention this last night?"
"Because I didn't want to worry anyone until I was sure. Now I'm sure."
They sat with that for a moment. Humans tracks meant people. And people in this world were either friend or foe, and friends were rare.
"There's a town about twenty miles east," Jimmy said finally. "Crestview. We scouted it last month. It looked empty. It's got a hardware store, maybe a sporting goods place. Could have ammunition, and medical supplies."
Nick nodded. "Worth a look."
"Then it's settled." Jimmy looked at Ashley and Jenna. "Nick and I will go. You two stay here, hold down the fort."
Jenna frowned. "Why do we always have to stay?"
"Because someone needs to protect the cabin." Jimmy met her eyes. "And because you're better with that crowbar than either of us are with a gun."
She couldn't argue with that.
They left an hour later, the Suburban rumbling down the overgrown gravel road toward the highway. Jimmy drove, Nick rode shotgun, their guns within easy reach. The old girl had held up remarkably well over the past year. Jimmy had spent countless hours maintaining her, patching holes, scavenging parts from abandoned vehicles. She wasn't pretty anymore, covered in dents and scratches, the paint faded and peeling. But she ran. That was all that mattered.
The drive to Crestview took about forty minutes, the Suburban bouncing along back roads and avoiding the main highway. Jimmy kept his eyes moving, scanning the treeline, watching for any sign of movement. The dead were everywhere out here, even after a year. Not as many as before, most had migrated, following whatever instinct drove them.
"Something's wrong," Nick said as they approached the town limits.
Jimmy saw it too. The streets were empty, but not the normal empty. There were bodies. Dozens of them, piled in the middle of the main intersection. Not just bodies. Zombies. Dead zombies, their heads destroyed, their gray flesh already starting to rot. Flies buzzed around them in thick clouds, the smell reaching them even through the Suburban's closed windows.
"What the fuck?" Nick breathed.
Jimmy killed the engine and they sat in silence, listening. Nothing. Just the wind and the buzz of flies.
"Someone's been here," he said. "Recently. Look at the blood. It's still wet in places."
Nick raised his shotgun. "Survivors?"
"Maybe. Or maybe something worse."
They got out of the Suburban slowly, weapons ready, eyes scanning every window and doorway. The town was a ghost town, but it was a ghost town that had seen violence. Bullet holes in walls. Spent casings on the ground, Blood spatters that could have been zombie or human. A car with its windows shot out, the seats stained dark.
The pile of bodies in the intersection was a statement. A warning. Whoever had done this wanted it seen.
"Jimmy." Nick's voice was tight. "Look."
He pointed at a building across the street. The hardware store, the one they'd come for. Its windows were boarded up, but not with the haphazard boards of abandonment. These were professional. Reinforced. And above the door, painted in fresh white paint, were the words:
TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT. SURVIVORS NOT WELCOME
"Well," Jimmy said quietly. "That's not good."
They should have left then. Every instinct Jimmy had was screaming at him to get back in the Suburban and drive away, find another town, another supply source. But they needed those supplies. The ammunition, the tools, the medical gear. The couldn't afford to just walk away.
"We'll be quick," he said. "In and out. Grab what we can and go."
Nick nodded, but his face was pale. "I don't like this."
"Neither do I. Let's move."
They approached the hardware store cautiously, staying low, using parked cars for cover. The front door was locked, but a side window had been broken and partially boarded. Jimmy pried the boards loose and slipped inside, Nick right behind him.
The store was a mess. Shelves were overturned, merchandise scattered, the smell of rot and gunpowder thick in the air. Bodies lay in the aisles. Zombies, all of them, their heads destroyed. Someone had made a stand here, and they'd won.
But in the back, in a storage room that had been reinforced with steel shelving and padlocks, they found what they came for. Boxes of ammunition. Shotgun shells, rifle rounds, even some 9mm. Medical supplies. Bandages, antiseptic, even a box of antibiotics. Tools. Rope. Duct tape. Everything they needed and more.
"Jackpot," Nick whispered, already grabbing boxes.
Jimmy started loading his pack, working fast, every second feeling like an hour. They had maybe ten minutes before whoever had painted that message showed up. Maybe less.
They made it five.
The first shot took out the windows behind them, glass spraying across the floor. Jimmy drove behind a shelf, Nick right beside him. Another shot, another window. Then a voice, amplified by a megaphone:
"Come out with your hands up! This is our town! You have five seconds!"
"Fuck," Jimmy breathed. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
He risked a glance through a gap in the shelves. Outside, he could see them. Four figures, armed with rifles, spread out in the street. Survivors. Hostile survivors. They moved like they'd done this before, like they knew what they were doing.
"Four of them," he whispered to Nick. "Rifles. Good positions."
"We can't fight them."
"We might not have a choice."
The megaphone crackled again. "Three seconds! Two-"
Jimmy made a decision. "Go out the back. Now."
They ran.
The back door burst open and they were running. Nick first, then Jimmy, their packs heavy with supplies. Behind them, they heard shouts, then gunfire. Bullets whined past them, pinging off metal, kicking up dirt. One ricocheted off a dumpster inches from Jimmy's head.
They made it to the Suburban. Jimmy yanked open the door, threw his pack inside, and dove in.
The first bullet hit the engine block. The second hit the radiator. Steam exploded from the hood in a massive cloud, and the Suburban gave a dying groan, fluids pouring onto the ground.
"No," Jimmy breathed. "No, no, no."
More gunfire. He dove behind the vehicle, Nick beside him. Bullets thudded into the Suburban's body, punching through metal and shattering glass. The tires blew out one by one. The old girl was being torn apart.
"We're pinned!" Nick shouted. "We can't-"
Jimmy grabbed his rifle and peered around the hood. Three of them now. One must have circled around. They were closing in, firing steadily, methodically. He could see their faces now-hard, hungry, desperate. The kind of people the apocalypse had made into predators.
He took aim and fired. One of them dropped, a dark flower blooming on his chest. The others dove for cover.
"Go!" He shouted. "Go now!"
They ran.
The next hour was a blur of running and hiding and running again. They crashed through the underbrush, branches tearing at their clothes, their faces. They splashed through a creek, hoping to lose their scent. They found a dense thicket of pines and collapsed into it, chests heaving, lungs burning.
Jimmy leaned against a tree, gasping for air, and felt a sharp pain in his arm. He looked down and saw blood, a lot of it, soaking through his sleeve. He hadn't even noticed the bullet graze him until now, a deep furrow along his bicep where a round had torn through skin and muscle.
Nick was in worse shape. A lot worse. A bullet had caught him in the shoulder, punching through muscle and out the back. The wound was a mess. Blood pouring down his arm, his shirt soaked red, his face pale as paper.
"We need to keep moving," Jimmy gasped. "They might follow."
"Can't." Nick's voice was weak, barely a whisper. "Can't... can't go much farther."
Jimmy looked at him. At the blood soaking his shirt, at the way he was listing to one side, at the pain etched into every line of his face. They had to get back to the cabin. They had to.
But the Suburban was gone. Their transportation, their lifeline, their home on wheels, destroyed.
"We walk," Jimmy said. "We walk and we don't stop."
They walked.
The sun was setting by the time they'd covered half the distance. Jimmy's arm had stopped bleeding, but it throbbed with every step, a constant reminder of how close they'd come. Nick was worse. Pale, sweating, his shoulder a mess of blood and torn flesh. He'd wrapped it with a strip of his shirt, but the fabric was already soaked through. He needed real medical attention, and soon.
They'd salvaged what they could from the Suburban before running. They saved two packs of supplies, maybe a third of what they'd gathered. Ammunition, some medical gear, a few tools. It wasn't much, but it was something. It would have to be enough.
"We need to stop," Nick said, his voice a whisper. "Need to rest."
"Not yet. We're almost there."
"Jimmy-"
"We keep moving."
Three miles from the cabin, as the light was fading from the sky, they found it.
An old Hummer H1, parked in a clearing off the road, half-hidden by overgrown brush. It looked like it had been there for months, maybe longer. Leaves covered the hood, vines crept up the tires, dust and grime obscured the paint.
But even under all that, it was beautiful.
All black. Black paint, black bumpers, black grille, black rims. Fully blacked out, like something out of a movie. The tires looked low, but Jimmy knew Hummers came with an onboard compressor system. You could inflate and deflate the tires right from the cab with the flip of a switch.
Jimmy started at it from a long moment. Then he laughed. A raw, hysterical sound that was half relief, half madness.
"You've got to be kidding me."
Nick slumped against a tree, barely conscious. "What? What is it?"
"Our new ride."
It took them twenty minutes to get the Hummer running. Jimmy checked the engine. A Duramax diesel, same as the Suburban had, which meant parts and fuel would be compatible. The battery was dead, but a quick jump from the portable charger in his pack brought it back to life. He climbed into the cab, found the tire pressure controls, and watched as the gauges climbed.
When the engine finally turned over, when that massive V8 roared to life, Jimmy almost wept.
He helped Nick into the passenger seat, loaded their supplies, and pointed the Hummer toward the cabin.
Ashley met them at the door, her face white with terror. Jenna was right behind her, crowbar in hand, ready to fight. When she saw Nick, she dropped the crowbar and ran to him.
"Oh God," Ashley breathed, seeing the blood, the exhaustion, the wreckage of them. "Oh God, what happened?"
Jimmy stumbled toward her, let her catch him. "Hostiles. In Crestview. They shot the Suburban. We had to walk."
"Walk? That's... that's twenty miles-"
"We found a Hummer." He managed a weak smile. "All black. Fully blacked out. Duramax diesel. It's perfect."
Nick was already on the ground, Jenna kneeling beside him, her hands pressing against his wound. He looked up at her, tried to smile and passed out.
"Get him inside," Ashley said, her nurse's voice taking over, calm and steady despite everything. "Now. Jenna, boil water. Jim, grab the medical kit from the supplies. Move"
They moved.
The next three hours were a blur of blood and stitching and desperate home. Ashley worked on Nick like she was back in the ER, her hands steady, her voice calm, her eyes focused. She cleaned the wound with antiseptic, stopping the bleeding with practiced pressure. She stitched the torn muscle layer by layer, closing the entry and exit holes with surgical precision. Jenna stayed by Nick's side the whole time, holding his hand, talking to him, willing him to stay alive.
When it was over, when Nick was bandaged and resting and breathing steady, Ashley sat back on her heels and let out a long, shaky breath.
"he's going to make it," she said. "He lost a lot of blood, and he'll be out for a while, but he's going to make it."
Later that night, after Nick was settled and Jenna had fallen asleep beside him, Jimmy and Ashley sat on the porch, watching the stars wheel slowly overhead. The Hummer sat in the clearing, black and massive, a new beginning.
"The Suburban's gone," Jimmy said quietly. "Really gone this time."
Ashley leaned against him, her head on his shoulder. "I know."
"But we've got the Hummer now. It's a beast. Built like a tank. We'll make it work."
She nodded. "We always do."
They sat in silence for a while, holding onto each other, holding onto the moment. The night was quiet. No moans, no screams, just the gentle rustle of winter through the pines.
Somewhere in the darkness to the north, a shadow moved. Nine feet tall. Gray skin stretched over bulging muscle, thick as armor. Eyes that glowed with a faint, malevolent intelligence. It had been walking for a year now, following some ancient instinct, some programmed directive. It didn't tire. It didn't stop. It didn't sleep.
It was close now. Very close. And it was still coming.