Page 30 of What Remains

Jay stood beside the other SUV, a steaming paper cup in hand. He held it out wordlessly the moment Seth emerged.

Seth frowned. “Where the hell’d you get coffee?”

Jay smirked. “Found a sealed tin in the break room. Figured we earned it.”

Seth took the cup, its warmth seeping into his palms like an unearned blessing. “Black gold,” he muttered, taking a long, grateful sip.

Cara stepped around from the front of the SUV, a map already unfolded in her hands, her eyes sharp with early-morning focus.

Jay nodded toward her. “All right. Here’s the plan.”

Seth leaned back against Beast and listened.

Jay tapped the map. “Cara and I take point. She navigates; I drive.” He glanced at Cara. “You see anything that looks even slightly off, you call it out.”

Cara just nodded her focus absolute.

“Seth, you’re the rear in Beast and here I brought theses for just this situation,” Jay continued handing Seth a walkie talkie. “Keep a two-car buffer. No exceptions. We get ambushed, I want room to maneuver.”

“Got it,” Seth said. “How long are we thinking?”

“Map says three days to Denver,” Jay replied. “I say we plan for five. That gives us a time for whatever the road throws at us.”

Cara traced their route across the map with one finger. “There are a few old farm towns and supply spots along the way. We should stop if any look promising.”

“And,” Jay added with deliberate emphasis, “keep your eyes open for another trailer. We’re bringing back everything we can possibly carry.”

Seth took another long sip of coffee, letting the heat fight the cold acid churning in his stomach. The road stretched out ahead, a gray ribbon disappearing into uncertainty. But Jay was already moving, and Cara was double-checking her work. He wasn’t facing it alone he reminded himself.

Jay clapped him on the shoulder. “Eat something before we roll out. We should be rolling in fifteen minutes.”

Cara had already started around the front SUV, calling back over her shoulder, “I’ll check the tires again.”

Seth climbed back into Beast and sat for a moment behind the wheel. “Five days,” he murmured to himself. “Five days and a whole lot of praying nothing goes sideways.”

“All right,” he said. “Let’s get moving.”

Jay drove the SUV, Cara navigating beside him. Seth followed close behind in Beast, the massive vehicle growling steadily over the broken asphalt. Their trailer rattled along behind Jay, metal chains clinking in the cold morning air.

The first hour passed in an unnatural silence, broken only by the crunch of tires on asphalt.

Spring had thawed the snow but left the world looking half-decomposed. Winter had stripped away everything soft, and the thaw had only exposed more ruin beneath. Grass pushed up through cracks in the pavement. Saplings sprouted through collapsed roofs. Vines crawled steadily up rusted guardrails, reclaiming territory faster than any human effort ever could.

Nothing out there looked alive. But nothing looked fully dead, either.

Jay slowed as they passed a burned-out RV on the shoulder, its metal twisted and warped, the interior gutted and black. Cara turned away, understanding exactly what had likely happened inside.

They kept going.

Every few miles, they passed the skeletons of old lives: a gas station with its pumps ripped out, hoses scattered across the concrete; a playground buried under windblown debris, one swing still moving faintly in the wind; a collapsed delivery truck with its doors flung open and boxes spilled in every direction—picked clean months ago by hands long gone.

The whole world looked dead.

Cara traced their route on the map, her voice low. “There’s a small town up ahead. We should probably cut around it if we can—the main road cuts straight through the center.”

Jay nodded. “Yeah. We avoid anything dense unless we’ve got no other choice.”

They turned onto a side road where the pavement grew worse. Branches slapped against the sides of both SUVs as they threaded their way through.