Page 14

She listened to the occasional sounds, barely audible, but still there. Then, after a few moments, they stopped, replaced by footsteps once again coming toward her.
“Is there another way out?” she asked when she spotted the flashlight again, swaying toward her in the darkness.
“Yeah,” the woman answered before letting out a muffled cough. “But there’s too many zombies on the other side.”
Maddie’s chest sank. The flashlight continued moving until it went right past her. “So then, what?” she asked, turning to follow.
The footsteps continued with no answer.
Maddie weaved her way back down the aisle, one hand grazing the shelf while the other swung the cane gently back and forth.Eventually, the aisle beside her ended, and she watched as the flashlight ahead disappeared.
“Now what?” she whispered, making her way past the threshold of a door and spotting the flash light once again. She could barely hear the sounds of the infected outside, which meant they must have moved to a different room in the building than the one they’d first entered.
Her cane knocked against something that let out a sharp clang.
“Don’t make noise—“ the harsh whispered voice cut off with a muffled cough.
“Well, if we need to stay quiet, then maybe you should stop coughing so damn loud,” Maddie hissed back.
A moment later, she heard that quick release of compressed air again.
“What is that?” Maddie asked, her irritation latching onto anything it could find.
She waited in the silence for an answer that never came. And finally, she crouched down, lowering herself to the ground. Her legs and backed ached from walking so far with the pack on her shoulders for so many days in a row.
“What were you doing alone in the city?” Maddie asked, not really caring about the answer, but more so trying to distract herself from thinking about the infected that surrounded them.
“What wereyoudoing alone in the city?” the woman replied.
This time Maddie didn’t mind the return question as much. “We ran out of water,” she muttered, laying the handle of the cane in her lap. “After we got separated from everyone else.”
“How’d you get separated?”
“We were relocating,” Maddie swallowed, the memory replaying in her mind. “And we ran into a horde of infected.”
A few seconds of silence passed, and she knew that would be the end of the conversation if she didn’t continue it. Andsitting in silence felt like something she just couldn’t bear at that moment.
“So how long will it take for them to move on?” Maddie asked, removing the backpack from her shoulders. “The infected, I mean.”
“Depends. Could be an hour. Could be a day.”
Maddie nodded slowly. “I guess waiting here for a day isn’t the worst,” she muttered. At least it would give her more time to plan.
A low grunt. “I’m not waiting. I’ll give it another thirty minutes tops, then I’m leaving no matter what.”
Maddie stilled, her head cocking to the side. “Why?”
Should she be doing the same?
No answer.
“Why rush it? Why wouldn’t you wait?” she continued, anxiety creeping up into her chest. What was she missing?
Still no answer. Only the slightly heavy breathing.
Yeah, she was definitely missing something. Something about it didn’t feel right—didn’t sound right. But she didn’t have time to dwell on it. She needed to think about her own situation. She needed to figure out a plan of what she’d do after they got out of the pharmacy.
She needed a way to navigate—