The SUV's engine growled like a tired beast, its steady rumble the only sound in the pre-dawn stillness. Quinn's fingers drummed a silent rhythm on the steering wheel—left alive, left alive—as the last remnants of the city dissolved into the rearview mirror. The road ahead was a stretch of cracked asphalt cutting through fields of dead corn, their skeletal stalks bowing under the weight of neglect.
Sarah slumped against the passenger window, her breath fogging the glass in shallow bursts. The bandage on her thigh was a lost cause, the fabric soaked through with blood that had gone from crimson to something darker. The stench of iron and sweat thickened the air.
In the backseat, Helen crouched like a feral cat, her fingers twitching toward the AK-47 resting beside her. The girl hadn't spoken since the garage. Just stared at Sarah's wound with a look that wasn't quite guilt—more like the grim satisfaction of a trap sprung.
Quinn's jaw tightened. "You still with us?"
Sarah's laugh was a dry rasp. "Barely." She peeled her forehead off the glass, leaving a smudge of sweat behind. "Feels like someone's pouring fucking lava into my leg."
"Infection," Quinn said. No point sugarcoating it.
"Genius diagnosis, doc." Sarah's hand trembled as she reached for the water bottle between them. The cap slipped from her grasp, clattering into the footwell.
Quinn picked it up, pressed the bottle into her palm, and watched her fumble with it before finally taking a sip. Her skin was furnace-hot.
Helen's voice cut through the silence from the back: "She's gonna die if we don't fix that." Matter-of-fact, like she was commenting on the weather.
Sarah's head lolled toward the girl. "Thanks for the optimism, kid. And the bullet."
Helen's eyes flashed. "You were stealing our car."
"Your car?" Sarah's chuckle dissolved into a cough. "That rustbucket had dust on the dash older than you."
Quinn tuned them out, scanning the horizon. The sun was clawing its way up now, painting the fields in sickly yellows and purples. Abandoned farmhouses dotted the landscape. Then, in the distance, he spotted it—a thin column of smoke rising from a chimney.
A house with someone still inside.
He nudged Sarah. "Look."
She squinted. "Smoke means people. People mean problems."
"Also means antibiotics. Maybe a stove to sterilize a blade." Quinn's grip tightened on the wheel. "Your call."
Sarah exhaled through her nose. "Slow approach. Hands visible. No surprises."
Quinn turned off the main road, the SUV bouncing over ruts hidden in the overgrown grass. Helen scrambled upright, her breath quickening. "They'll shoot us on sight."
"Then it's your turn to take a bullet," Sarah muttered.
The farmhouse revealed itself in increments: boarded windows reinforced with steel brackets, a cleared perimeter of dirt where nothing grew, a clothesline strung with faded flannel and children's overalls.
He stopped fifty yards out and killed the engine. Silence, thick and heavy.
Then:
"Far enough!"
The voice came from the second floor, sharp as a whip crack. An old man's voice, but steady. Quinn rolled down his window slowly.
"We need help!" His words hung in the air. No response.
Sarah leaned across him, her shirt clinging to her ribs with sweat. "Gunshot wound! Fever's spiking!" Her voice frayed at the edges. "We've got supplies to trade!"
For a long moment, nothing happened. Then the front door creaked open. A woman stepped onto the porch, backlit by lantern light, a shotgun leveled at her hip. Her hair was steel-gray, her face deeply lined with years of sun and hard living. "Who shot you?"
Helen flinched in the backseat.
Sarah didn't hesitate. "I did."
Quinn shot her a look. Sarah's glare shut him up.
The woman's eyes flicked to Helen, then back to Sarah. "Bullshit."
"Fine." Sarah bared her teeth. "The kid did. We pissed her off. Now are you gonna stand there playing moral arbiter or help before I bleed out on your fucking porch?"
The woman's lips thinned. She glanced over her shoulder, nodded once, then jerked the barrel toward the house. "Bring her in. Leave the guns."
Quinn helped Sarah out of the car. Her leg buckled immediately, her weight sagging against him. Blood dripped onto the dirt, each drop kicking up a tiny cloud of dust.
Helen hesitated, then placed the AK-47 on the seat.
The woman's gaze tracked every movement. "The knife too, soldier boy."
Quinn slid his K-Bar from its sheath and dropped it.
Inside, the house smelled of woodsmoke and lye soap. A kerosene lantern cast long shadows over a kitchen table strewn with medical supplies—gauze, a bottle of moonshine, a bone-handled hunting knife resting next to a whetstone.
The old man emerged from the hallway, his own shotgun trained on Quinn's chest. His beard was white, his eyes the color of river ice. "On the table," he ordered.
Sarah collapsed onto the wooden surface with a gasp. The woman rolled up Sarah's pant leg, revealing the angry, puckered wound. Pus oozed from the edges.
"Clean shot," the woman muttered. "Lucky it didn't hit bone." She grabbed the moonshine. "This'll hurt."
Sarah snatched a leather strap from the table and clamped it between her teeth. "Do it."
The woman poured.
Sarah's scream was muffled, her back arching off the table. Quinn lunged forward—
The old man's shotgun pressed into his sternum. "Don't."
Helen stood frozen in the doorway, her fists clenched at her sides.
The woman worked fast, probing the wound with fingers stained yellow with tobacco. "Bullet's out. Just grazed you. But the infection's the problem." She reached for the hunting knife. "Gotta cut the rot out."
Sarah nodded, sweat dripping off her chin.
Quinn's voice was gravel. "You got anything for the pain?"
The old man snorted. "Ain't no hospitals left, son."
The woman leaned over Sarah, the knife glinting. "Bite down."
Outside, the wind picked up, rattling the boards over the windows. Somewhere in the distance, a crow cawed.
Sarah's scream tore through the farmhouse, raw and primal, as the knife bit into infected flesh. It wasn't just pain - it was the sound of a woman who'd survived too much to die quietly.