For exactly seven seconds, no one said a word.
Just the wind groaning across rusted beams and the lovely, wet squelch of a dropped protein bar being devoured below.
Nestor was collapsed on the parapet like a sack of laundry that barely made it through the rinse cycle. His one remaining shoe dangled pathetically, sock half-slid down. His knuckles were bleeding. His dignity? MIA.
And Xenia—dear, overachieving, spiraling Xenia—was flat on her back, staring up at the pink-orange sky like it had personally betrayed her.
"So," she said between gasps, "that sucked."
Rafe barked out a laugh that sounded a little too close to crying.
Tenorio leaned on his knees, sweating through his shirt like he was trying to dissolve into it. "You almost lost him," he said quietly, not accusing. Just… naming the fact out loud.
Rafe nodded. "I know."
"I lost the bag," Nestor mumbled, voice thick with something shame-adjacent. "There was medicine. And protein bars. I saved those for—"
"Stop," Marga said sharply. "You didn't lose the bag. You ditched it to live."
"And if we find more trail mix," Xenia added, rolling to sit upright, "I'll personally crown you the King of Crunch. But first? We need to get off this metal death stick and into something that floats."
She forced herself to her feet. Every muscle in her legs was vibrating like a chihuahua on espresso, but she ignored it.
"Boats are still there," she said, pointing down the dock below. "Two outriggers. They look sad, but they're floating."
"I can't row," Nestor murmured.
"Cool," Xenia replied. "You can emotionally support the rest of us. Clap when we paddle."
They crept down the final ladder.
It felt absurd. After parkour-hopping rooftops and almost dying on a balance beam like a rejected Olympic gymnast, here they were—crawling down a rickety service ladder toward salvation like awkward office workers leaving the building during a fire drill.
When they finally reached solid ground, no one spoke.
The sun was halfway gone now, bleeding out over the ocean. It should've been beautiful. Postcard material. Except the postcard smelled like blood, rust, and burned vending machine plastic.
They found shelter behind a collapsed shipping container and slumped there.
Xenia dropped onto a cement block and didn't move.
Her hands shook. Her knees still wobbled. She hadn't cried yet—but she could feel it hovering in the wings like an understudy waiting for her lead role in a breakdown.
"This is the part," she whispered to no one in particular, "where in a movie we'd get a hopeful montage. Like—cue the indie music. Someone braids their hair. Someone patches a bandage with cinematic lighting. Someone kisses."
No one responded.
Tenorio slowly passed around a half-full bottle of water. Rafe accepted it, took a swig, and wordlessly handed it to Marga, who took it without looking at anyone.
Nestor stared out at the boats, his eyes glassy. "My brother and I used to go fishing in those kinds of boats," he said. "Before… all this."
"I used to use mine to get Wi-Fi," Xenia muttered. "Rowed halfway across the lake near my dorm once just to upload a group project because Bryan didn't do his part."
"That's the most Xenia thing I've ever heard," Rafe said, faintly smiling.
"I got an A. And the last word. It was perfect."
---
Eventually, Tenorio stood.
"We move at dawn," he said. "We can't row blind at night. Too dangerous."
"Where would we even go?" Nestor asked. "The sea isn't exactly brimming with answers."
"We head for that little island on the west map corner," Xenia said, pulling out her half-scorched cereal box blueprint. "There was a cabin there. Or something that looked like one."
"How do you know it's not full of psychos?" Marga asked.
Xenia shrugged. "I don't. But we're fresh out of options and I'm too tired to be picky."
Tenorio nodded. "We hold here. Rest. Patch wounds. Eat something if we can."
"Cry a little," Xenia added. "Maybe scream into the void. I think it would help morale."
---
That night, they rotated watch duty.
Xenia took the last shift, watching as the stars emerged over the water like glitter tossed onto black velvet. It was stupidly beautiful.
And terrifying.
And so unfair that the end of the world still had the nerve to be this pretty.
When morning cracked over the ocean, gold spilling across the waves like a secret apology, she stood and whispered, "Time to go."
Rafe had one arm looped tightly under Nestor's, the other stretched outward for balance as they inched their way across the bridge's maintenance beam. The metal groaned beneath them like it resented the extra drama. Below, the infected swarmed like fans waiting for a meet-and-greet—with teeth.
Nestor winced. Not from pain—he'd formed a long-term relationship with that. No, this was shame. Every breath felt like an apology. Every wobble felt like a slow, pathetic "sorry" for existing.
"I'm fine," he muttered for the fourth time in ten minutes.
"Liar," Rafe muttered back, still not looking at him.
But his arm never loosened.
Up front, Xenia led the death march with the tight-lipped determination of someone pretending not to be spiraling. Her bare foot scraped across rusted steel in deliberate rhythm.
Step, step, don't die. Step, step, don't die.
This was not how her valedictorian speech was supposed to go.
Behind her, Marga moved with dancer-like precision—if the dance was "Don't Fall to Your Death: The Musical." Her eyes occasionally flicked down at the zombies below.
"They don't even look hungry," she muttered. "Just nosy."
Tenorio, as always, brought up the rear with silent stoicism and a jaw clenched tight enough to crush bone. His eyes drifted, unbidden, to Nestor. He hated that he cared. He hated that the apocalypse had somehow turned him into someone who gave a damn.
The wind picked up again, shoving at them like a bratty toddler. The bridge creaked with each gust, like the whole thing might sigh and collapse from exhaustion.
"We can do this," Xenia whispered, more for herself than the group.
"If we don't," Marga muttered, "we're just another snack pack."
Two hours and forty minutes of soul-grinding stress later, they saw it.
The edge of the bridge.
And just beyond, the old ferry dock. The ocean shimmered behind it, smug and endless.
But the docks weren't empty.
A dozen—maybe more—infected milled around, zombie-chaperoning the final stretch like they were bouncers for the afterlife.
Xenia ducked behind a traffic barrier, her breathing shallow.
"There it is," she whispered. "The end of the line."
"But not the end of the party," Rafe muttered, crouching beside her. "Too many to sneak past."
Tenorio scanned the field. "But not enough to stop us. We hit hard, move fast."
"They're scattered," Marga added.
"If one of them shrieks—" Xenia started.
"They don't," Tenorio cut in. "They growl. Chase. Bite. But they don't signal. Not coordinated."
"Cool," she said dryly. "So more like toddlers than soldiers."
"Exactly," Rafe grinned. "Terrifying, fast toddlers with teeth."
Rafe laid out the plan:
Group One—Xenia, Rafe, and Nestor—would run straight down the middle.
Draw attention.
Group Two—Tenorio and Marga—would flank and clean up any stragglers.
"And if the docks are blocked?" Xenia asked.
Rafe looked toward the waves. "Then we swim."
"I'm wearing canvas sneakers," Marga said. "They turn into bricks underwater."
"Guess you better run fast, then."
Xenia barked a dry laugh. "I gave the best graduation speech in the history of Central Campus, and now I'm about to race zombies with bare foot."
"That's life," Tenorio said with a shrug.
"No," she snapped back. "That's post-life."
The wind stilled.
Rafe gave the nod.
Go.
They vaulted the barrier. Xenia ran like hell, slapping pavement, lungs already threatening mutiny. Nestor lagged behind, Rafe matching his pace like a human crutch.
The infected turned. Heads twisted. Growls echoed.
The chase was on.
From the side, Marga and Tenorio broke from cover. Marga swung her broom-spear like a pissed-off ballerina. Tenorio moved like gravity owed him favors—clean, efficient, brutal.
Xenia didn't look back until the ferry gate—half-hanging from its hinges—came into view.
And she saw it.
Marga was limping but upright. Tenorio was peeling a zombie off his boot. Rafe was dragging Nestor forward.
And the zombies?
Down.
Every last one.
She barely noticed when her knees hit the dock. Or when Rafe collapsed next to her, panting. Or when Marga exhaled so hard it sounded like a prayer and a curse mixed together.
They'd made it.
For now.
The Boat
The boat was small. Dinged-up. Probably stolen. The paint peeled like sunburn, and it reeked of mildew, oil, and broken dreams. But Tenorio got it running, because of course he did, and the engine coughed to life like an asthmatic chainsaw.
It floated. It moved.
That was all they needed.