Page 97 of Romancing in Rot

For one stupid heartbeat, pity rises.

Then its head snaps toward us.

Swoosh.

An arrow punches clean through its skull, cutting it off before it can groan. Leon lowers his bow without a sound.

I jump forward and grab the infected by its collar before it can slam against the pavement. Its weight drags at my shoulder, heavy with dead meat and ruined bones. Sour rot rolls over me, thick enough to taste. My stomach flips, but I swallow it back.

No noise. No panic. No vomiting on the street like an amateur.

Gold star for apocalypse growth, Clair.

We keep moving.

The deeper we go, the worse the city looks. Burned cars. Gutted storefronts. Trash drifting through gutters. A child’s pink sneaker beside a storm drain, laces stiff with dried blood.

Another infected appears at the mouth of an alley, a woman in a torn dress with one missing heel. She lets out a wet inhale.

I pull the crowbar from over my shoulder, step in before fear gets a vote, and swing into the right side of her head. Bone cracks under the metal, vibrating through my teeth. Joanie catches her by the arm and helps lower her before she drops too loudly.

My hands don’t shake.

I grip the crowbar tighter and keep moving.

Two more round the corner ahead, drawn by something we can’t hear. Trish moves first, knife already in hand. She sidesteps the first lunge, drives the blade into its temple, and rips it free. The second barely gets a step before she’s behind it, knife sliding into the base of its skull.

Both bodies hit the ground soft.

If this was field day, we would win the ribbon for best teamwork.

Possibly also most traumatic use of school spirit.

Carlos checks that we’re still with him, then keeps moving.

The buildings crowd closer the farther we go, alleyways narrowing, shadows stretching longer between them. Every step feels watched. Every corner feels like the last one we might turn.

Then Carlos stops so fast I nearly walk into him.

“Fuck.”

The words on the side of a boarded-up laundromat snag my attention.

SANCTUARY AT THE MALL. FOOD. SHELTER. SAFETY.

The letters are huge, jagged, and painted in green that has dried too dark against the brick. At first, it looks like an old message from the early days, one last attempt at hope from people who still believed in signs and gathering places.

Then the arrow beneath it catches me.

Fresh.

Or fresher than I want it to be.

“Anyone else seeing that?” Trish asks, voice low.

Lyla’s attention shifts to a bus stop shelter across the street. The same message is scrawled across the cloudy glass, smaller this time, but just as bold.

MALL = SAFE.