We spent the rest of the afternoon watching Silas's door. He didn't come out. The street stayed quiet, just the slow, aimless drift of trash in the wind. The feeling was strange. Before, the silence had been about emptiness. Now it felt like it was hiding something. Like the quiet itself was listening.
"I don't like it," Jonah said for the tenth time. He was at the window, the shotgun now propped against the wall. "He's just sitting in there. What's he doing?"
"Planning," I said. I was sharpening the tip of a broom handle with Mr. Chen's utility knife. It was a stupid thing, but my hands needed to be busy. "Same as us."
The broom handle wasn't for a broom. I was making a spear. The bat was good, but it needed you to be close. Too close. A spear gave you three extra feet of death between you and the thing that wanted to bite you. It was crude. The wood was soft pine. But it was something.
"We can't just wait for him to make the first move," Jonah said.
"He already did." I tested the point. It was dull, but it would punch through cloth and rotten flesh. "He told us he knows about the church. That means he's scouted it. He knows what's in there. He's waiting for us to get desperate enough to say yes."
"So we get desperate."
I looked up from the spear. Jonah's face was pale but set. His eyes had a new hardness to them. The shock was wearing off. Fear was turning into something else. Something more useful.
"We have maybe nine days of water left if we stretch it," I said. "Two days before we get truly thirsty. Three before we start making bad decisions. That's our clock."
"And his?"
"His is shorter," I said. "He has what, two jugs? That's a week, max. And he's alone. He can't watch and sleep at the same time. He needs us more than he's letting on."
Jonah thought about that. A little color came back to his face. "So we wait him out?"
"No. We change the deal." I set the spear down. "We go to him with a plan. Our plan. Not a partnership. A job. We hire him for one task. Clearing the church. Payment in food and water, upfront. No moving in. No long term promises."
"And if he says no?"
"Then he's not as smart as he looks," I said. "And we have a different problem."
I finished the spear. It was ugly, but it had a point. I taped the handle for a better grip with electrical tape from the back. It felt good in my hands. A simple tool for a simple, terrible task.
As the sun began to dip, painting the street in long, deep shadows, I knew it was time. Waiting until dark was a mistake. Dark was when things got brave.
"I'm going," I said.
Jonah picked up the shotgun. "Same drill?"
"Same drill. But this time, if he even looks at me wrong, you aim that thing at the center of his chest and you don't look away. You understand?"
"I understand."
He went to the window. I went to the gate. I didn't bother being quiet this time. I slid it open with a rumble that felt too loud. I stepped out into the cool air of early evening, the spear in my left hand, the bat in my right.
I walked to the flower shop door and knocked on the plywood. Three firm raps.
The slot at the top darkened immediately. His eye appeared. "You're back."
"We need to talk business," I said. "Open up."
The bolt slid back. He opened the door just enough to let me in, then closed it fast behind me. The smell of dead flowers was stronger in the evening heat.
He looked at the spear, then at my face. "You came armed for a negotiation."
"I came prepared," I said. "Here's the deal. You know about the church basement water tank. We need it. You need it. But you can't clear it alone. We can't clear it alone."
He leaned against a cold glass cooler. "Go on."
"We hire you," I said. "For one job. Tomorrow at first light. We go to the church together. We clear the basement. We tap the tank. You get a payment for your work. Ten cans of food. Two gallons of water. Upfront. Tonight."
He didn't smile. He just watched me. "And after?"
"After, you go back to your shop. We go back to ours. We have water. You have supplies. We reassess."
"Reassess," he repeated, rolling the word around in his mouth. "So this isn't a partnership."
"It's a transaction. Clean. Simple."
He pushed off from the cooler and walked a small circle in the clear space of his floor. "You're smarter than you look. But you're missing the bigger picture."
"Enlighten me."
"That water tank is five hundred gallons. Maybe more. It's gold. Once word gets out that it's tapped, and it will, this whole block becomes a target. You think you and your friend can defend a pipeline? You need more than a one time hire. You need a garrison."
He was right. I knew he was right the moment he said it. The water wasn't just a resource. It was a flag. It would draw every survivor with a dry throat for a mile around.
"What are you suggesting?" I asked, though I already knew.
"A real alliance," he said, stopping in front of me. "We secure the church. Not just tap it. We fortify it. We make it a second location. A fallback point. You, me, your friend. We control the water. We control the block. Anyone wants a drink, they deal with us. On our terms."
It was a power play. A move to become a warlord. I could see it in his eyes. This wasn't about survival anymore. It was about control.
"My friend won't go for it," I said.
"Then he's a liability." Silas's voice was flat. "This isn't a charity, kid. This is a new world. You're either building something, or you're waiting to be buried under what someone else builds."
The words hung in the rotting air. He was offering me a choice. Be a king of the ashes with him, or stay a scared kid in a store.
"I need to talk to Jonah," I said.
"Of course." He walked to the door again. "But talk fast. Tomorrow, at dawn, with or without you, I'm going to that church. And if I secure it alone, the price of a drink goes way up."
I stepped back out into the twilight. The door closed behind me. The bolt thudded home.
When I got back, Jonah was at the gate. "Well?"
"He wants to build an empire," I said, walking past him into the dim shop. "He doesn't want to tap the water. He wants to own it."
Jonah followed me. "So we say no. We stick to our plan. We hire him, we get our water, we're done."
"It's not that simple." I leaned the spear and the bat against the counter. My shoulders ached. "He's right about one thing. Once that water is flowing, people will come. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon. We can't defend it from here. We'd need to be there. And we can't be in two places at once."
Jonah sat down hard on an upturned milk crate. He put his head in his hands. "So what do we do?"
"We sleep on it," I said. "We have until dawn."
We ate dinner in silence. More cold stew. The food was fuel, nothing more. After, we set up for the night. I moved the barricade of water cases tighter against the inner door. I made sure the shotgun was loaded and within reach. Jonah took the first watch.
I lay down on a bed of flattened cardboard in the stockroom, but sleep wouldn't come. I stared at the ceiling, at the shadows thrown by the single, shuttered lantern.
Silas was a problem. But he wasn't wrong. Surviving the next week was one thing. Surviving the next month, the next year, that was something else. It required more than cans of soup and a locked gate. It required territory. It required power.
The thought sickened me. It also felt true.
My father, before he died, used to say that a good man adapts. A great man prepares. I was never sure what that meant. Now I thought I understood. Adaptation was learning to kill a Walker. Preparation was asking yourself what you'd become to keep the killers at bay.
Somewhere in the dark, a solitary gunshot rang out. Far away. A sharp, lonely crack that echoed between the buildings and then faded into nothing.
It was a reminder. The clock was ticking. For everyone.
I closed my eyes. Dawn was coming. With it, a choice.
And I had no idea which way to jump.