Chapter 11: The rest of us were just… waiting to be eaten.
The forest was a cathedral of quiet tension. Sunlight streamed through the canopy in dusty shafts, but Nate moved through it like a man walking through a minefield. His head was on a constant, slow swivel, his eyes scanning the shadows between the trees, the dense thickets, the fallen logs. Every few steps, he would stop completely, his whole body still, just listening. The heavy backpack of supplies and ammunition was a familiar burden now, a part of him. The M4 was in his hands, safety off, his finger resting along the receiver. He was a wire, humming with vigilance.
Skylar struggled to keep up. Her own pack was heavy, and the compound bow, while familiar, was awkward to carry on the move. The silence was getting to her. After the sobbing and the panic, the quiet felt heavy, oppressive.
"So," she started, her voice too loud in the hush. "Where are we going? You know, specifically?"
Nate didn't look back. "Away from them. That's specific enough."
She trudged on for a few more minutes, the only sounds their footfalls and her slightly labored breathing.
"Okay. What's your name? I can't just keep calling you 'hey you' in my head."
He sighed, a short, annoyed sound. "Nate."
"Nate," she repeated, as if testing the word. "I'm Skylar."
"I know."
That shut her up for about thirty seconds.
"How did you… you know, survive? Out here by yourself?"
"By being quiet," he said, the sarcasm dry as dust. He paused, listening to a birdcall, categorizing it as non-threatening before moving on.
She ignored the hint. "I mean, did you have a family? Before?"
His back stiffened almost imperceptibly. "No."
"Friends?"
"Not really."
"Wow. So you were just… alone? Even before all this?"
He stopped and turned to look at her, his expression flat. "You talk a lot. You know that? In this world, talking gets you killed. It draws them. It draws… other things."
She flinched but pressed on, desperate for any human connection, even an annoyed one. "I'm sorry. It's just… it's been so long since I talked to anyone who wasn't… them. Pierce never shut up, but he only talked about himself. Kaelan only gave orders. The other women were too scared to say anything."
The name 'Pierce' hung in the air. Nate turned and started walking again, his pace a little quicker.
"You know," Skylar continued, almost talking to herself now, "it's weird what you remember. I keep thinking about that day. The day it all started. We were at this stupid, fancy hotel. The Palisades Manor."
Nate's steps didn't falter, but his grip on the rifle tightened.
"Everything was perfect," she mused, a bitter edge to her voice. "And then it all just… broke. The TV went crazy, there were these awful screams from downstairs… and Pierce was freaking out, yelling at this poor guy."
Nate couldn't help himself. A grim, humorless smile touched his lips. "Poor guy?"
"Yeah, this… maintenance guy, or janitor, or something. He was in the room fixing the TV when the news cut in. Pierce was being a total dick to him, like he always was to anyone he thought was beneath him. He even threw money at him. Can you believe that? The world was ending, and he was throwing a twenty-dollar bill at the help."
Nate stopped. He turned around fully this time, his face a mask of cold amusement. "Yeah," he said, his voice low. "I can believe it."
Skylar blinked, not getting it. "It was just so… pathetic. That guy, though, he was cool. He just took the money, didn't say a word, and got the hell out. I remember thinking, 'He's the smartest one in this room.' He knew it was over. The rest of us were just… waiting to be eaten."
Nate looked at her, really looked at her. The woman who had sighed with such profound boredom at his presence. The woman who had looked right through him. And now she was telling him this story, this memory where he was a nameless, faceless "janitor," a footnote in her apocalypse.
"The world's funny like that, isn't it?" Nate said, his tone dripping with a sarcasm so thick it was almost tangible. "The people you think are beneath you one day… well, let's just say the playing field got leveled real quick. That 'maintenance guy' probably lasted a lot longer than your boyfriend."
He saw the confusion on her face, the dawning realization that his reaction was… personal. But the connection wasn't quite sparking. To her, he was just Nate, the armed and dangerous stranger. The man from the suite was a ghost, a character in a story.
He turned his back on her before she could piece it together. "Enough talking. We need to find a place to hole up before dark. And if you can't be quiet, I'll leave you for the Rippers. I'm not kidding."
He started walking again, leaving her standing there, a little stunned. She hurried to catch up, the questions dying in her throat, replaced by a new, unsettling wonder about the man leading her through the woods. The silence returned, but now it was filled with the echoes of a past she didn't even know they shared.