Journal Entry

Dad says routines keep people alive.

Every few months we replace the batteries in the perimeter cameras, test the laser alarms, check the trip wires, and make sure raccoons haven't stolen anything important.

It's boring.

Which is probably why it works.

The apocalypse doesn't usually kill people during exciting moments.

Most of the time it waits until somebody gets comfortable.

Dad usually handles perimeter day with me.

Today he's helping Mom and Dr. Anderson.

Which means I'm in charge.

That feels like a terrible decision.

The younger kids took the news exactly as expected.

"Can I come?" Harry asked.

"No."

"What about me?" Jonas tried.

"No."

Elliott raised her hand.

James immediately pointed at her.

"Also no."

"I didn't even ask yet."

"You were going to."

She sighed dramatically and dropped her hand back to the table.

"Fine."

Across the kitchen, Maggie hid a smile behind her coffee mug.

"You're enjoying this," James said.

"A little."

The backpack sat on the table between them, stuffed with batteries, tools, wire cutters, zip ties, a roll of electrical tape, and enough emergency supplies to survive the sort of disaster that usually happened when someone said it would only take an hour.

John looked up from his breakfast.

"First camera's near the north trail."

"I know."

"Second one still has that loose bracket."

"I know."

"Watch the ravine crossing."

"Dad."

John grinned.

"What?"

"I know."

Karen didn't look up from her notebook.

"Don't forget to test the laser grid."

James turned toward her slowly.

"Mom."

"What?" She feigned innocence.

"I know."

She nodded once with a hidden smile behind her lips..

"Good."

Then immediately went back to writing.

Dr. Anderson looked between them from the counter, where he had been quietly trying to understand what passed as normal in the cabin.

"You two realize he's done this before, right?"

"Several times," John said.

"Then why are you acting like he's twelve?"

John pointed his fork toward James.

"Because if something goes wrong, he'll blame us."

Dr. Anderson considered that.

"Yeah. Okay. That's fair."

"Very fair," Karen added.

James sighed.

Across the room, Elliott slid off her chair.

"Can I at least watch the cameras while you're gone?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because the last time you watched the cameras, you reported suspicious movement for twenty minutes."

"It was suspicious."

"It was a deer."

"It was moving suspiciously."

Harry nodded with complete seriousness.

"Honestly, she's got a point."

James grabbed the backpack before the conversation could mutate into something worse.

"Come on."

Maggie stood and took the security tablet from the table.

The second they reached the door, Jonas called after them, "If you see any creatures, can I have one?"

Everybody froze.

"What?" Jonas asked.

Anderson set his coffee down.

"You cannot have a creature."

"What if it's dead?"

"You especially cannot have it then."

"That's unfair."

James shut the door behind them.

The argument continued inside anyway.

The woods were quiet.

Not empty. Never empty. There was no such thing as empty anymore. There were birds somewhere overhead, wind brushing through leaves, the faint movement of small animals that had inherited most of the world without filing any paperwork. But the dangerous kind of quiet, the breath-held kind, wasn't there.

At least not yet.

Maggie carried the tablet while James carried the ladder, backpack and his bow. The quiver rested against his shoulder, familiar enough that he barely noticed the weight anymore.

Every few minutes, Maggie glanced down at one of the camera feeds.

"You know the cameras aren't going anywhere," James said.

"You don't know that."

"They're attached to trees."

She shrugged.

"Trees move."

"Not that much."

"You sound very confident."

"I've spent eighteen years around trees."

"And?"

"They've never outrun me."

Maggie laughed.

The sound moved through the woods softly, softer than her laugh usually was inside the cabin. Out here, everything seemed to understand volume as a shared responsibility.

James found himself smiling.

Then, because he noticed, he looked away.

The first camera sat about ten feet up in an old pine near the north trail. John had mounted it years earlier when James was still short enough that climbing the ladder felt like an adventure instead of a chore. Now the ladder just felt like one more thing trying to kill him through inconvenience.

Maggie stopped beneath the tree and held up the tablet.

"I see you."

"Congratulations."

"No, I mean on the camera."

"I got that."

He climbed the ladder, opened the weatherproof casing, and swapped the battery. The old one went into the side pouch of the backpack. New one in. Seal checked. Wire checked. Lens wiped with the corner of his sleeve.

"Still good?" he asked.

Maggie looked down.

"You're making a face."

"What face?"

"The face people make when technology does something they don't understand."

"That's just my face."

"It's frozen."

"I'm concentrating."

"On the suspicious tree?"

She looked up at him.

"It moved."

James stared down.

"It's a tree."

"I'm not saying it walked away. I'm saying the wind moved it and now it looks suspicious."

He climbed down.

"You and Elliott are going to be a problem."

"I think Elliott and I are going to be very valuable members of your security team."

"You don't have a security team."

"Not with that attitude."

They moved on.

The trail narrowed as it curved toward the ravine, where the ground sloped unevenly and roots webbed across the dirt like they were trying to trip people on purpose. James led there, more out of habit than anything. Maggie followed close behind, careful with her steps but not helpless about it. She had gotten better in the woods. Quieter. More aware.

That surprised him sometimes.

Not because he thought she couldn't learn. She was smart. Stubborn, too, which helped. But most people who came to the cabin had a period where the woods felt like an enemy. The place had spent most of James's childhood being a family getaway. Now it was a bunker. Most people struggled with that transition. Maggie hadn't.

Maybe she had already understood enemies.

At the ravine crossing, James crouched beside the first trip wire. It was still intact, though half buried beneath leaves. He brushed it clear with two fingers and checked the tension.

Maggie crouched beside him.

"What does that one do?"

"Bell trap."

"Like an alarm?"

"Sort of."

"Sort of?"

"If anything hits the wire, it pulls a pin, drops a weight, and the weight knocks a bunch of scrap metal together."

"That's very technical."

"I like to keep my explanations scientific."

"What happens after that?"

"Whatever hit it either gets distracted or gets loud enough for us to notice."

"And if it's a person?"

James glanced at her.

"Then they learn not to step on wires."

She absorbed that without flinching, though her mouth pressed into a thin line.

He didn't blame her. There were things about the perimeter that looked cruel if you forgot what the world had become. Or if you remembered too well.

"Most of these are warnings," he said after a moment. "Dad doesn't like traps we can't undo."

Maggie looked at him.

"Your mom?"

"Mom likes things that work."

"That tracks."

He almost laughed.

Instead, he reset the wire and stood.

They checked two more sensors after that. One had gone dim, its little red indicator light barely blinking. James replaced the battery while Maggie watched the feed on the tablet.

"Okay," she said. "That one came back."

"Good."

"Camera three is still showing the deer."

"There's no deer."

"There was a deer."

"When?"

"Ten minutes ago."

James paused.

"You've been watching a deer for ten minutes?"

"It might come back."

"Why?"

"To finish being suspicious."

He shook his head and kept walking.

At the next tree, the camera bracket had sagged exactly the way John said it would. James tightened the screws, added two zip ties, then gave the whole thing a shake. It held.

"Your dad really built all of this?" Maggie asked.

"Most of it."

"And you helped?"

"Mostly handed him tools until I was old enough to be useful."

"When was that?"

"According to Dad, thirteen."

"And according to you?"

"Ten."

"And according to your mom?"

James thought about it.

"Maybe twenty-five."

Maggie smiled.

"That also tracks."

They moved deeper along the perimeter. The cabin disappeared behind the trees until it felt less like a place and more like a secret. The farther out they went, the less obvious the defenses became. A wire tucked beneath brush. A solar charger nailed high enough that rainwater wouldn't pool. A camera disguised in a nesting box that no bird had ever been stupid enough to use.

James liked that part.

The cabin survived because it didn't announce itself.

A fortress invited challenge.

A cabin in the woods invited being overlooked.

For a while, neither of them spoke. The silence didn't feel awkward anymore. It hadn't for a while. Maggie checked the tablet. James checked the trail. Their footsteps settled into a rhythm that felt almost normal.

Eventually, Maggie said, "What was she like?"

James didn't look over right away.

He knew who she meant.

"Abby?"

Maggie nodded, eyes still on the path.

For a moment, he considered making a joke. Something easy. Something that would let the question pass without touching anything sharp.

Then he didn't.

"She talked a lot."

Maggie glanced at him.

"That's your first answer?"

"It's the most accurate."

"More than pretty?"

"Way more."

That got a laugh out of her.

James smiled despite himself.

"She could turn ordering food into a full conversation."

"With who?"

"Anybody."

"That's terrifying."

"It really was."

They stepped over a fallen log.

"She was nice, though," he said.

Maggie's expression softened.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

He looked through the trees, though he wasn't really seeing them.

"Everybody liked her."

The words hung there.

Not painful exactly.

Just heavy in a familiar way. Like lifting something he already knew the weight of.

Maggie didn't rush to fill the silence. That was one of the things he liked about her, though he had no intention of examining that too closely. She knew when not to press. Or maybe she knew what it felt like to have someone press too hard.

Eventually, James glanced at her.

"What about Ryan?"

Maggie immediately groaned.

"Absolutely not."

"You asked first."

"That was different."

"It wasn't."

"It emotionally was."

"That's not how rules work."

She rolled her eyes, but there was a smile threatening the corner of her mouth.

"He couldn't cook."

James laughed.

"That's the second time you've used that as a personality trait."

"Because it was."

"That's concerning."

"He almost burned down our garage making grilled cheese."

"There it is."

"I still don't know how he managed it."

"Talent."

"Weaponized incompetence."

"Same thing."

Maggie laughed again.

Then the laugh thinned out.

Not all at once. It just faded at the edges until it wasn't there anymore.

"He was good with my brothers," she said.

James looked over.

She didn't talk about them much. Not directly. Not unless someone else brought them up first.

"They loved him," she continued. "He'd play video games with them for hours. Even when they were being annoying."

"That sounds suspicious."

"I know."

"Nobody is that patient."

"He kind of was."

The small smile came back for a second, then vanished.

They walked a few more steps.

The wind moved through the trees above them.

"Sometimes I want to go back," Maggie said.

James slowed.

"Home?"

She nodded.

"Not because I think anyone's there."

Her grip tightened on the tablet.

"I know that's insane."

"I've met Elliott."

Maggie let out a quiet laugh.

"My definition of insane is flexible."

The smile disappeared again.

"I just want to know."

James didn't answer.

Because he did know.

The wanting was different from hope. Hope had teeth. Hope made promises it couldn't keep. This was something quieter and worse. The need for an answer, even if the answer broke something.

"Whether Ryan made it," Maggie said. "If my friends made it. If anybody made it."

A branch cracked somewhere far off, but neither of them reacted yet. Too faint. Too easy to be wind or animal.

"I just want to know definitively," she said. "You know?"

James nodded.

Every birthday.

Every holiday.

Every time the road stretched too far in front of him.

Abby alive.

Abby dead.

Abby wandering.

Abby trapped.

Abby gone.

Abby here.

There were too many ways to not know a person's ending.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "I know."

Maggie looked at him then.

Not with pity.

That helped.

For a while they walked without speaking.

They reached the last camera before the eastern slope. James changed the battery, checked the seal, and climbed back down. Maggie tapped through the tablet feeds, slower now.

"You okay?" he asked.

She nodded.

Then shook her head.

Then looked annoyed with herself for doing both.

"I don't know."

"That's allowed."

"Is it?"

"Probably."

"Very official."

"I'm in charge today."

"Terrible decision."

"That's what I said."

She smiled.

Then a branch snapped ahead of them.

Not faint this time.

James stopped.

Maggie stopped with him.

The woods changed.

It was subtle, but James felt it happen. The birds went quiet. The wind kept moving, but everything under it seemed to pause.

His hand shifted toward his bow.

Maggie's went to her pistol.

Another crack sounded through the trees.

Closer.

James shook his head slightly.

"Wait."

Movement appeared between two pines.

Human.

Sort of.

A woman, maybe middle-aged once. Her jacket hung open, one sleeve torn away. Her hair clung in dirty ropes around a face that had stopped belonging to anyone a long time ago.

The Sick saw them.

Its mouth opened.

The scream cut through the woods like something tearing cloth.

Maggie's pistol cleared her holster.

"Maggie, don't—"

The gunshot exploded.

The Sick dropped instantly.

One shot.

Clean.

For half a second there was only ringing silence.

Then a scream answered from somewhere deeper in the forest.

Then another.

Then another.

Maggie's face fell.

"Oh."

James nodded once.

"Yep."

Movement erupted between the trees.

One shape became three.

Three became six.

Branches snapped as the Sick pushed through the underbrush, all of them turning toward the sound, toward them, toward warm bodies and fresh blood and everything the world had taught them to chase.

Maggie raised the pistol again.

James reached back and pulled an arrow from his quiver.

"Get behind me and don't use that thing unless necessary."

"What?"

"Behind me."

There was no time to argue.

The first Sick broke into a run.

James lifted the bow.

The string snapped forward.

The arrow struck the Sick through the eye.

It collapsed so suddenly its legs tangled beneath it and sent it skidding into the leaves.

Maggie went still behind him.

James was already drawing another arrow.

The second Sick came from the left, faster than the first, its jaw hanging loose, hands stretched forward. James turned, exhaled, and released.

The arrow punched through its open mouth.

It dropped.

The third came too close.

James stepped back once, nocked, drew, fired.

The arrow buried deep beneath its chin.

It fell at his feet.

"Holy shit," Maggie breathed.

"Not now."

Another scream.

Another body through the trees.

Then two more.

James could feel Maggie behind him, close enough that if he stepped back too fast, he'd hit her. Good. That meant she had listened.

Mostly.

The fourth Sick lunged over a fallen branch.

James shot it through the temple before both feet hit the ground.

The fifth came from behind a cluster of saplings, half hidden until it was almost too late. Maggie lifted the pistol.

James caught the movement from the corner of his eye.

"Don't."

He drew and fired in one motion.

The arrow struck the Sick in the throat. Not enough.

It staggered but kept coming.

James swore, yanked another arrow free, and fired again.

This one went through its forehead.

It dropped.

The woods screamed back.

Not six now.

Not seven.

Too many voices from too many directions.

James's stomach tightened.

There was a difference between a fight and a mistake.

They had just crossed it.

"We're leaving," he said.

Maggie looked past him into the trees.

More movement.

A lot more.

"James—"

"Now."

They ran.

Branches whipped at James's arms. Roots grabbed for his boots. Maggie stayed close behind him, breathing hard but keeping pace.

Behind them, the woods came alive.

The Sick crashed through brush with no care for pain, no fear of broken bones, no sense that anything between them and prey mattered. Their screams layered over one another until it sounded like the forest itself had opened its mouth.

James reached into the backpack while running and nearly tripped over a root for his trouble.

"Great," he muttered.

"What are you doing?" Maggie gasped.

"Multitasking badly."

His fingers found a flare.

He struck it, and red light hissed to life in his hand.

The nearest Sick screamed louder.

"Throw it," Maggie said.

"I know."

He hurled the flare hard to the right, deep between the trees. Red light spun through the shadows and landed in a burst of sparks against the leaves.

Several Sick veered toward it.

Not all.

Enough to matter.

They hit the first perimeter marker.

James didn't slow.

Maggie stumbled behind him, caught herself, and kept moving.

A Sick burst from the trees ahead of them.

Too close.

James tried to lift the bow, but the angle was wrong. Maggie moved before he could tell her not to.

The pistol cracked once.

The Sick dropped.

More screams answered.

Maggie's eyes widened.

"Necessary," she said.

James grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward.

"Very necessary."

They crossed the second marker.

A laser alarm triggered behind them.

For one awful second nothing happened.

Then the noise trap erupted.

Metal crashed against metal, a violent, clanging racket that echoed through the woods. Several Sick turned toward it immediately, slamming into brush and each other as they redirected toward the sound.

James kept running.

The third marker came into view.

Almost there.

Something slammed into the underbrush to their left.

James shoved Maggie forward, spun, drew, and fired.

The arrow took the Sick through the cheek and out the back of its skull.

It fell without a sound.

James turned and ran again.

His lungs burned.

The cabin was still too far, but the inner perimeter was close. Close enough.

Another noise trap went off behind them.

Then another.

The woods filled with clanging metal and screaming bodies chasing every sound except the two people who had finally learned to stop making new ones.

By the time they reached the final marker, Maggie was breathing hard enough that she had one hand pressed to her side.

James wasn't doing much better.

He stopped only when he was sure they had enough distance, then turned back toward the trees with another arrow ready.

The screaming shifted away.

Not gone.

Never gone.

But moving toward the traps.

Toward the flare.

Toward the noise.

Away from them.

For several seconds, neither of them spoke.

Maggie bent over, hands on her knees.

James kept watching the woods.

When the last nearby scream faded, he lowered the bow.

Maggie looked up at him.

Her face was pale.

"You just killed..."

She stopped, like she had lost count and didn't like that either.

James looked down at the bow in his hand.

"Some."

"Some?"

"It's hard to count when they're running at you."

She stared at him.

"That was insane."

"Which part?"

"All of it."

"Fair."

She straightened slowly, still breathing hard.

"I didn't know you could do that."

James shrugged one shoulder.

"You've seen me shoot."

"Targets."

"That's usually the goal."

"No." Her voice was quieter now. "I mean I didn't know you could do that."

He didn't know what to say to that.

There wasn't a good answer. Yes, he could. Because he had to. Because his father taught him. Because his mother expected survival to be treated like homework. Because the world ended and left children to become weapons in the gaps adults couldn't fill.

So he didn't say any of that.

Instead, he looked toward the pistol in her hand.

"You're a good shot."

Maggie glanced down at it like she had forgotten she was still holding it.

"I killed it."

"You did."

"One shot."

"Also true."

Her eyes flicked toward the woods.

"And then I rang the dinner bell."

James nodded.

"The noise is the problem."

"The noise," she repeated.

She slid the pistol back into the holster slowly.

"I didn't think."

"Most people don't the first time."

She looked at him.

"You did."

"I've had practice."

"That's not comforting."

"No."

The silence that followed wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't awkward either. It was the kind of silence people stood in after something almost happened and didn't. The kind that made breathing feel like proof.

Maggie looked back toward the trees.

"They don't stop."

"No."

"Not even after the traps?"

"They'll follow the noise for a while. Some will get caught in the outer lines. Some will wander off when the sound dies. Dad and I will check it later."

"You're going back out there?"

"Not right now."

"But later?"

"Someone has to take care of them before they become a hoard"

She turned to him fully.

The look on her face had changed.

Not fear exactly.

Not admiration either.

Something more complicated.

Like she had been handed a new piece of him and didn't know where it fit yet.

"You do this all the time. You hunt people?"

James shifted the backpack higher on his shoulder.

"It's not like that."

"James."

He looked away.

"Often enough. It keeps the cabin safe and that's where we're going to find a cure and then I can shoot them with medicine." James says, clearly having told himself this over time.

The wind moved through the trees again. The birds hadn't come back yet.

Maggie wrapped her arms around herself, then seemed to realize she was doing it and dropped them.

"So what am I supposed to use?" she asked, accepting his answer.

James glanced at her.

"What?"

"If guns are dinner bells, what am I supposed to use?"

The answer came to him immediately.

A terrible idea.

Which usually meant it had potential.

He felt himself smile.

Maggie's eyes narrowed.

"No."

"I didn't say anything."

"You made a face."

"I have several faces."

"Not that one."

"What one?"

"The one that means I'm about to regret asking."

James tried not to laugh.

Failed.

Maggie pointed at him.

"See? That one."

He glanced down at his bow, then back at her.

"How do you feel about crossbows?"

"No."

"You haven't heard the idea."

"I heard the word crossbow."

"You'd be good at it."

"No."

"You have steady hands."

"No."

"You already aim well."

"James."

"And it's quiet."

Maggie opened her mouth.

Closed it.

That was the first sign of victory.

He wisely did not smile too much.

She looked back toward the woods, where the last faint clanging of metal still echoed somewhere beyond the trees.

"How long did it take you to get that good?"

"My dad started teaching me when I was seven."

"Absolutely not."

"You wouldn't need that long."

"That is not the reassuring part of the sentence."

"You asked."

"I regret that."

They started walking again, slower this time.

The cabin was visible through the trees now, a flash of roofline and windows tucked between branches. Home, pretending to be ordinary. Smoke from the stove pipe curled into the sky. Somewhere inside, Jonas was probably still arguing the legal definition of pet.

Maggie walked beside James instead of behind him now.

For a while, neither said anything.

Then she glanced over.

"You really think I could learn?"

James kept his eyes on the trail.

"Yeah."

"You're not just saying that?"

"No."

She studied him for a second.

"Would your dad teach me?"

"Probably."

"Would you?"

He looked over.

That question felt different.

Smaller.

More dangerous.

He adjusted his grip on the bow.

"Yeah," he said.

Maggie nodded.

Then, after a moment, "Fine."

James smiled.

"I knew you'd come around."

"I did not come around."

"You did."

"I am considering maybe thinking about possibly trying it once."

"That's coming around."

"It is absolutely not."

"It's the early stages."

"You're unbearable."

"Quietly armed, though."

She laughed, and this time the sound didn't seem out of place in the woods.

When they reached the cabin, Harry was waiting near the window with his face pressed to the glass. The second he saw them, he vanished from sight, probably to announce their return like a town crier with no training.

Maggie stopped at the bottom of the porch steps.

James looked at her.

"You okay?"

She glanced back toward the trees one last time.

Then she looked at him.

"I think so."

It wasn't a lie.

It also wasn't the whole truth.

James understood that better than most things.

Inside the cabin, voices rose. Harry shouted something about creatures. Jonas shouted back something about ownership rights. Elliott yelled that she saw everything on camera, which was impossible because James had turned that feed off before they left.

Maggie sighed.

"Are we telling them?"

"About the Sick?"

"Yes."

"Dad will ask."

"Your mom?"

"She'll already know."

Maggie considered that.

"Terrifying."

"Very."

James opened the door.

Warmth spilled out first. Then noise. Then the smell of coffee, toast, and whatever experiment Karen and Dr. Anderson had already turned the kitchen into.

Harry barreled toward them.

"Did you see any?"

James stepped inside.

"Yes."

Jonas appeared behind him.

"Can I have one?"

"No," four people said at once.

Maggie looked at James.

Despite the blood on his sleeve, despite the dirt on her jeans, despite the way the woods still screamed somewhere far beyond the walls, she smiled.

And James, against his better judgment, smiled back.