The group pulled onto the shoulder to rest. Ahead of them stretched a graveyard of abandoned cars disappearing into the darkness, rusted fras packed bumper to bumper like the remains of a failed escape. Most had been ripped open and stripped clean, doors hanging loose like broken jaws. Others had burned down to blackened skeletons warped by heat and ti.
"Hey, Michonne... how long until we get there? Sitting here is making feel sick," Molly said, eyeing the endless rows of cars. One hand rested on her knife as she scanned the dark.
"Thanks to the map, we don't have to worry about roadblocks," Michonne replied, exhaustion etched across her face. "Gas is the problem. We're running low, and we only have two cans left. That won't take us far. If we find more along the way, we might make it there by tomorrow night."
She exhaled slowly. She and Jane had each been driving for nearly ten hours, and it was starting to show.
"Why don't you take a quick nap," Molly offered. "I'll check the cars. There's got to be sothing out here."
Michonne nodded and leaned back, her eyes closing almost imdiately.
"Going out in the dark…" Jane muttered. "Let co with you."
"You've barely slept either," Molly shot back. "Get so rest. You're driving next... unless you want behind the wheel."
A pause.
"…Yeah, I think I'll rest," Jane said quickly.
Molly narrowed her eyes. "That's your answer? That fast?"
Jane didn't respond.
"Hey." Molly pointed at herself like she was presenting evidence. "I'm a good driver. No, I'm a great driver."
Jane opened one eye and studied her for a long second.
"Six cars," she said.
Molly blinked. "That was—"
"Four bikes."
"Okay, to be fair—"
"I would trust Clentine behind the wheel before you." Jane closed her eye again. "Good night, family head."
Silence.
Molly stood there processing that.
Jane didn't move.
Molly let out a quiet breath, sothing between irritation and reluctant acceptance. "Bitch," she muttered under her breath, almost fondly.
She grabbed her gun and shoved the door open. Cold air rushed in, sharp and imdiate.
"I'm coming with you," Clentine said, already shifting forward. "Sitting here is killing my back. I need so air."
Molly hesitated. The refusal was right there, but one look at Clentine's face killed it.
"…Fine," she said. "Stay close."
The two of them stepped into the darkness carrying flashlights and an empty gas can, weaving carefully between abandoned vehicles. Clentine kept her gun low but ready, the dagger at her hip catching faint streaks of moonlight as she scanned for walkers while Molly searched the cars.
"Fucking hell. Nothing but empty," Molly muttered after checking another vehicle, frustration creeping into her voice. "I swear, if these next ones are empty too—"
"Let's keep looking," Clentine said quietly, eyes tracking a cluster of walkers shambling far down the road. "We'll find sothing."
Molly slamd another empty gas cap shut and glanced at Clentine.
"Clentine… do you know why Max is the way he is?"
Clentine frowned. "Like what?"
"You know." Molly lowered her voice dramatically. "I'm starting to think that crazy priest was right. Max might not actually be human... I used to think he was cooked in so military lab, but now I'm leaning toward what the priest said."
Clentine stared at her. "Why would you think that?"
"Seriously?" Molly scoffed softly. "You don't notice his body defies logic. I've never seen anyone like him." A smirk tugged at her lips. "Soone so annoyingly handso."
Clentine puffed out her cheeks. "Don't even think about it."
Molly imdiately raised both hands. "Whoa. Relax."
"You just called him handso."
"I said annoyingly handso. Big difference."
Clentine tried to stay annoyed, but Molly's grin made it impossible.
"You do look cute when you get jealous, though," Molly added. "I wonder what your kid's gonna look like... Hopefully not bald like Max."
For a mont, Clentine actually pictured it, a tiny bald baby with Max's face and the image cracked her composure instantly. A laugh escaped before she could stop it, and Molly started laughing too.
The sound faded quickly into the cold night air.
After a mont, Molly spoke again, quieter this ti.
"You know how I feel about Max." The teasing edge had vanished from her voice. "So why do you trust around him so much?"
Clentine looked at her for a mont before answering.
"Because you're my best friend." She adjusted her grip on the flashlight. "And because I trust Max. He would never betray ."
Molly stared at her, then laughed softly and shook her head.
"Damn. Healthy relationships in the apocalypse. Gross."
Clentine rolled her eyes.
Then, more quietly:
"…Thank you."
Molly waved it off and kept moving toward the next row of vehicles.
"Don't thank . Distracting you is easy." She pointed ahead. "Co on. Let's focus."
Clentine swept her flashlight across a crooked line of vans along the roadside. Mud still clung wetly to the tires.
"Those vans don't look like they've been sitting here long," she whispered. "Maybe there's gas."
Molly nodded, and together they moved forward carefully.
Cold wind hissed through the trees, bending branches overhead with dry creaks. Sowhere deeper in the woods ca the low, hungry growls of walkers drifting through the dark like distant animals. Every sound felt too close.
Neither of them spoke as they approached the vans. The road was littered with abandoned cars, shattered windows reflecting weak streaks of moonlight. Rotting bodies slumped inside so of them, frozen silhouettes watching from the dark.
Molly scanned the area first, sweeping her eyes between the trees.
Nothing moved.
At least nothing they could see.
"Front's clear," she whispered. "Check the gas. I'll get the cargo door open."
"Got it."
Clentine crouched beside the van and twisted the gas cap loose. The sharp sll of gasoline hit instantly.
"Molly," she whispered urgently. "We found gas."
Relief flickered across her face as she quickly began siphoning fuel into the can.
"Molly?"
No response.
The wind suddenly stopped.
Clentine looked up.
Molly stood frozen beside the van door, staring into the darkness inside.
"Molly… what is it?"
Clentine stepped closer and peered through the narrow opening.
Her stomach dropped.
People.
At least twenty of them were cramd into the back of the van so tightly they could barely move. Most were elderly, though so were teenagers and children.
Every single one had their hands and mouths bound.
But that wasn't the worst part.
So were missing eyes, others were missing limbs and several had deep bite wounds wrapped in filthy, blood-soaked bandages.
All of them were still alive.
Barely.
Their hollow eyes locked onto Clentine and Molly with the hopelessness of people who had suffered too long. One old man trembled violently as tears rolled down his face. A little girl stared without blinking, cheeks sunken from starvation.
Then Clentine noticed the sll.
Rot.
Not walker rot.
Infection.
The air inside the van slled wet and diseased, thick enough to choke on.
"What the hell is th—"
Before she could finish, the people inside suddenly began thrashing violently.
The van rocked hard.
Muffled screams erupted as bound bodies slamd against the tal walls.
Then another van nearby started shaking.
Then another.
A chorus of muffled cries and pounding tal echoed down the road and suddenly alarms exploded to life.
Van sirens scread through the night.
"Shit!" Molly hissed, slamming the door shut.
The woods answered instantly.
Walkers growled from every direction.
Shapes moved between the trees.
Dozens of them.
Branches snapped in the darkness as the dead turned toward the sound.
"Run, Clentine!"
Clentine grabbed the gas can, and both of them sprinted back through the wrecked cars. Walkers stumbled out from between the vehicles, drawn by the alarms. One lurched from the shadows with half its jaw hanging loose. Molly slashed across its face without slowing, while Clentine buried her dagger into another skull mid-stride.
"This way!" Molly shouted, pointing toward the road. "The car's over there—"
A gunshot cracked through the night.
Molly scread as a bullet hit her arm.
"Fuck!"
More shots erupted from the darkness.
Clentine instantly fired back blind while dragging Molly behind an overturned car.
"Lights off!" Clentine shouted. "Turn your light off!"
The second their flashlights died, the gunfire stopped.
Silence swallowed the road.
Then—
One by one, pale lights flicked on high above them.
Branches illuminated overhead.
Clentine's blood ran cold.
"Motherfucker…" Molly whispered. "They're in the trees."
Figures shifted above them like ghosts between the branches, rifles aid downward through the leaves. Flashlights swayed slowly, beams cutting through drifting fog and dead limbs.
Below them, walkers kept coming.
Clentine could hear them scraping against tal. Wet feet dragging across pavent. Low growls breathing sowhere just beyond sight.
"There's too many," Clentine whispered, breathing hard. "We can't stay pinned here."
"We shoot through them," Molly said through gritted teeth. "I'll cover you."
Clentine nodded once.
Then both of them exploded from cover.
Gunfire erupted upward as Clentine and Molly fired into the trees. Two figures dropped screaming through the branches and a barrage of bullets shredded the cars around them.
Glass burst outward.
tal shrieked.
Car alarms joined the chaos.
"Move!"
They sprinted between wrecks while Molly fired behind them and Clentine picked targets from the muzzle flashes overhead.
Bullets tore past close enough for Clentine to feel the air split beside her face.
Darkness was the only reason they were still alive.
Then suddenly—
Every light went out.
The entire road vanished into blackness.
Clentine froze for half a second.
The darkness felt alive.
Walkers growled sowhere impossibly close now, hidden between the cars and trees. Fingers scraped tal nearby. Slow footsteps shuffled through gravel.
But she couldn't see anything.
Not the walkers.
Not the people hunting them.
Nothing.
Her breathing turned shallow.
She flicked her flashlight on for less than a second—
Gunfire instantly exploded toward them.
They dove behind another car as bullets punched through rusted tal overhead.
Then silence again.
A long, horrible silence.
The kind where sothing could be inches away from you and you'd never know until it grabbed you.
Neither of them spoke.
But both of them were terrified.
"What do we do?" Molly whispered, clutching her bleeding arm.
"I don't know," Clentine admitted quietly. "But they are everywhere."
A walker suddenly smashed through the car window beside them.
Clentine barely had ti to react before rotting hands grabbed her shoulder and dragged her against broken glass.
"Clentine!"
Molly switched on her flashlight instinctively.
For one awful second, the beam illuminated everything:
The walker snarling inches from Clentine's face.
Dozens more shapes moving through the dark behind it.
And high above them, rifles turning toward the light.
Without hesitation, Molly hacked the walker's arm off.
Clentine tore free and drove her dagger straight into its skull.
"Run!"
They took off again through the darkness.
But sothing had changed.
No more gunfire ca from the trees.
That sohow felt worse.
The walkers still chased them through the road and woods, growling from all sides, but the silence overhead felt patient now.
Like they were being herded.
Then a calm woman's voice called out ahead of them.
"You were heading this way, so I figured I'd wait."
Clentine and Molly stopped cold.
Lights snapped on around them one after another.
Figures erged from the darkness between abandoned cars and trees.
Ten people.
Maybe more.
All ard.
At the center stood a woman with a massive scar stretching from the corner of her mouth to her ear.
"You interrupted our sleep," she said casually. "And good sleep is important."
Her eyes hardened.
"But what I really mind is you killing my people."
"You shot first," Molly snapped, raising her gun.
"We thought the vans were abandoned," Clentine added carefully, though her stance remained tense. "Nobody has to die over this."
The scarred woman laughed once.
"You steal our gas. You break into our van." She tilted her head slightly. "What would you do?"
"Please," Clentine said. "Just let us leave."
The woman studied her for a mont.
Then sighed.
"If you hadn't killed my n, maybe." She glanced lazily toward the trees. "But now? Can't do that."
She lifted a hand.
"Kill them."
Every weapon rose at once.
Clentine's heart slamd against her ribs—
Headlights suddenly exploded through the darkness.
A car roared straight into the ard group, smashing two people aside and sending bodies flying across the pavent. Walkers imdiately sward the fallen.
The scarred woman barely rolled out of the way.
"GET IN!" Michonne shouted from behind the wheel.
Clentine and Molly didn't hesitate.
They threw themselves into the car as bullets erupted from the trees again.
Jane leaned out the window firing back while Michonne slamd the gas pedal down.
The car tore down the road, smashing walkers aside as gunfire echoed behind them. Figures disappeared back into the woods while darkness swallowed the road whole once more.
"We heard the alarms," Jane shouted. "Who the hell were those people?"
Clentine looked back at the fading lights disappearing between the trees.
"I don't know," she admitted quietly while wrapping Molly's bleeding arm. "But they're dangerous."
"Fucking shit," Molly groaned through clenched teeth, forcing out a grin. "Thought we were about to beco fertilizer."
Nobody laughed.
"But…" Molly weakly lifted the gas can. "We did get their fucking gas."
Still no response.
Outside the windows, walkers wandered endlessly through the trees beside the road, barely visible whenever the headlights swept over them. The forest felt endless.
Black.
Watching.
No one spoke after that.
The car raced deeper into the night while darkness closed behind them like sothing alive.
---
"Madam Amy… should we go after them?"
The question ca from a girl no older than fourteen, her voice careful as she looked toward the scarred woman.
Amy kept her eyes fixed on the dark road where the car had disappeared. Her hand trembled slightly around the grip of her gun not with fear, but rage.
"They don't have what we're looking for," she said coldly. "And chasing them now would cost us too much."
She turned slightly.
"We have a mission. We don't abandon that for revenge."
A beat passed before she spoke again.
"Luna. Deal with the cars, I don't want more walkers gathering here."
"Yes, Madam," Luna replied, though hesitation lingered in her voice. She glanced toward the bodies scattered across the road. "But… they killed our people. Are we really just letting them go?"
There was genuine disbelief in her tone. Everyone knew Amy didn't forgive easily.
Amy slowly bent down and picked up a rifle from the ground.
"I have a feeling we'll et them again eventually," she said.
Then she smiled.
It stretched too wide across the scar on her mouth.
"And when we do…" Her voice softened into sothing almost cheerful. "I'll make them very happy."
A chill crawled up Luna's spine.
She had only seen Amy smile like that a few tis before.
And every single ti, sothing terrible had followed.
===
I hope you enjoy the long chapter.
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