Page 23 of What Remains

Mr. McKale's house loomed across the road. He'd never done anything halfway in his life, and if anyone on this street kept a stocked emergency supply, it would be him. Josie needed that stockpile more desperately with every passing day.

She hurried across the street, boots crunching against the thawing ground, breath puffing in pale clouds ahead of her. She tried the front door.

Locked.

Her heart sank. She backed away and checked the windows, one after another. All of them were locked.

"You're a doctor. You survived years of sleep deprivation and combat trauma. You can handle a window," she told herself, though her pulse thundered in her ears.

She chose a small side window near the porch—one she could climb back through fast if she needed to. Wrapping her elbow in her coat, she turned her head away and struck the glass.

CRASH.

The sound exploded across the quiet street, impossibly loud. Josie froze, ears straining into the silence that followed.

Silence. No footsteps, no infected groans, no voices. Only the wind.

She let out a trembling breath, swept the remaining shards away with her sleeve, and climbed through, landing inside with a soft thud.

The moment she stepped into the darkened entryway, the smell stopped her cold: rot, decay. A heavy sweetness clung to the back of her throat, and she gagged, eyes watering. Bracing a hand against the wall, she forced a shallow breath through her mouth. Just tissue, she told herself. A problem to be managed, contained. You can do this.

But it was harder when the body belonged to someone she'd waved to every morning. Someone who used to shovel her sidewalk without being asked. Someone whose wife had died years ago, leaving him quietly lonely but unfailingly kind.

Mr. McKale.

She swallowed and pushed forward.

His body lay in the bathroom just off the hallway, the door cracked open. She nudged it shut with her foot, refusing to look too long at the collapsed shape on the tile—skin blackened and sunken with decay, hands curled as though he'd tried to brace himself against the sink before he fell. She closed the door gently, almost respectfully.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to the closed door. Her fingers turned the lock with a soft, final click—a barrier for the living, not the dead.

The hallway was dim behind drawn curtains. She flicked on her small flashlight, angling the beam toward the floor as she moved. Each footstep on the hardwood creaked, unnervingly loud in the silence.

Supplies. In and out. Don't waste time.

The house was cold, but the layout was just as she remembered. She pictured Layla, small and bundled in a snowsuit, handing Mr. McKale a plate of Christmas cookies right here in this kitchen. Her throat tightened. Life had been so painfully normal.

She opened the garage door.

Two red gas cans sat on a shelf beside old camping gear: tarps, a water jug, rope, bungee cords, even a folding shovel. Josie's eyes moved from item to item, each one crossing off something she hadn't dared hope for. A full toolbox rested on the workbench, organized with the meticulous precision only a career military man would maintain.

"Thank you, Mr. McKale," she murmured into the dark.

She grabbed a large plastic tote and began filling it fast—rope, tools, tarps, anything useful her hands could reach. She found a siphon hose coiled neatly beside a jug labeled WINTER FUEL STABILIZER and nearly laughed aloud with relief.

Then her eyes drifted to the corner, and her breath caught.

MREs. Not many—perhaps eight or nine packs, likely remnants from her Marine days—but each one represented another day her daughter wouldn't go hungry. She added them to the tote.

Once the tote was full, she dragged it to the garage door facing the driveway and peered outside. Quiet. No infected in sight, no wandering survivors, no visible danger of any kind. Yet, by now, she knew better than to trust stillness.

She exhaled. "Okay. Two more minutes."

She fumbled through the shelves, grabbing batteries, flashlights, a can of WD-40, and a tarp-wrapped bundle that revealed itself to be a tent.

She quickly went back in the house, as she climbed the stairs, each step a reminder that she didn't belong there. Her pulse thudded in her ears as she moved toward the master bedroom, the air inside stale and cold. She paused at the doorway and listened.

When she finally crossed the threshold, she went straight for the closet. The moment she opened the door, her hand tightened on the knob, and she froze.