Chapter 4: The Scream in the Starlight
The scream cut through the morning like a blade through silk.
Jenney was on her feet before her eyes fully opened, the Glock already in her hand, her finger finding the trigger guard with the muscle memory of a thousand hours of video games and exactly one night of real terror. The room swam into focus—Jane still curled on the couch, Sarah stirring in the bed, Lily pressed against the door with her pistol raised.
"What the fuck," Jane mumbled, her voice thick with sleep. "What the actual fuck."
"Shh."
Jenney moved to the window, her bare feet silent on the cheap carpet. She parted the curtain with one finger, just enough to see outside.
The parking lot was bathed in the gray-pink light of early morning, that weird liminal hour when the world couldn't decide if it was day or night. Dew covered everything—the cracked asphalt, the abandoned cars, the rusted pickup truck that sat across from their room like a sleeping animal. The neon sign buzzed weakly, its letters flickering in a pattern that might have been random or might have been a message she was too tired to decode.
And in the middle of it all, a girl was screaming.
She was naked. That was the first thing Jenney noticed—not because nudity was unusual anymore, not after last night, but because this girl wore it differently. She wasn't a survivor stripped bare by circumstance. She was someone who had never been naked in public in her life, someone whose skin had never seen the sun without SPF fifty, someone who was screaming at the top of her lungs because—
"It's a bug," Jenney said. "She's screaming at a bug."
"What?" Jane was at her shoulder now, peering through the curtain. "Is she serious?"
"Looks serious."
The girl was dancing around the parking lot like the asphalt was lava, her arms flapping, her mouth open in a perfect O of horror. There was something on the ground near her feet—something small and dark and probably completely harmless. A beetle, maybe. A roach. The kind of thing that would have made Jenney jump six months ago, back when her biggest problem was passing chemistry.
Now it just looked... sad.
"We should help her," Sarah said. She was sitting up in bed, her hair a tangled mess, the Rosewood Arms t-shirt hanging off one shoulder. "She's obviously not—she doesn't know what's happening."
"She's going to get herself killed." Destiny's voice came from the corner, where she'd been keeping watch. She hadn't moved from her position by the window, hadn't lowered the shotgun. "Screaming like that. It'll draw them."
"She's just scared."
"She's stupid."
"Destiny—"
"I'm not wrong." Destiny finally turned, her eyes flat and cold. "We survived last night because we were smart. We were quiet. We didn't scream at bugs. If we go out there to save her, we're putting ourselves at risk for someone who clearly can't take care of herself."
Jenney looked at the girl again. She'd stopped screaming now, but she was still dancing, still flapping, still completely oblivious to the fact that she was standing in the middle of a war zone with her ass hanging out.
She was young. Younger than Jenney, maybe. Eighteen? Seventeen? Her hair was long and blonde and perfectly maintained, the kind of hair that came from expensive salons and hundred-dollar conditioning treatments. Her body was the kind of body that came from personal trainers and parents who could afford them.
A rich girl. A spoiled girl. Someone who had probably never worked a day in her life, who had probably never wanted for anything, who had probably never imagined that the world could fall apart while she was busy taking selfies and sipping lattes.
Someone who was going to die if they didn't help her.
"I'm going out there," Jenney said.
"Jenney—"
"I'm going out there." She was already moving toward the door, her hand on the knob. "She's a person. She's scared. And she's going to get eaten if someone doesn't pull her head out of her ass."
"I'll cover you." Destiny's voice was resigned, but her hands were steady on the shotgun. "But if she screams again, I'm leaving her."
"Fair enough."
The morning air hit Jenney like a slap. It was cold and damp and smelled like rot and dew and something else—something sweet and chemical, like the inside of a spa. The girl's perfume, maybe. Or her shampoo. Something that didn't belong in this new world of blood and fear and survival.
Jenney approached slowly, her hands raised, the Glock tucked into the waistband of her borrowed shirt. The girl didn't notice her at first—she was too busy staring at the bug, which had apparently decided to stay put on the asphalt like it owned the place.
"Hey," Jenney said.
The girl looked up. Her eyes were wide and blue and completely empty of understanding. She looked at Jenney like Jenney was the strange one, like Jenney was the one who was naked and screaming at insects.
"There's a bug," the girl said. Her voice was high and breathy, the voice of someone who had never had to raise it above a whisper. "There's a bug right there."
"I see it."
"It's huge."
"It's a beetle."
"It's disgusting." The girl shuddered, her whole body rippling like a flag in the wind. "I hate bugs. I hate them so much. I was just trying to find my car and then I saw it and I just—"
"Where are your clothes?"
The girl blinked. Looked down at herself. Looked back at Jenney with an expression of genuine confusion.
"I don't know."
"You don't know where your clothes are?"
"I don't know how I got here." The girl's voice cracked, the first sign that something was actually wrong, that maybe she wasn't just spoiled and stupid but actually, genuinely lost. "I was at a party. A really good party. And then I woke up here and I don't know where here is and I don't know where my phone is and I don't know where my friends are and there's a bug and I'm naked and I don't—"
She started crying.
It wasn't the kind of crying Jenney was used to—the quiet, controlled tears of someone who had learned to keep their pain private. It was loud and messy and ugly, the kind of crying that came from someone who had never really had anything to cry about before.
Jenney looked back at the motel room. Jane was watching through the curtain, her face unreadable. Sarah was probably already planning what to say, already figuring out how to be kind. Lily was probably scared. Destiny was probably annoyed.
They had one room. One car. Limited supplies. A plan that involved getting somewhere safe, somewhere defensible, somewhere they could figure out what to do next.
They didn't have room for a rich girl who didn't know where her clothes were.
Jenney thought about the man in room four. The note in her pocket. The words that she had read and then folded and then tucked away like a secret she wasn't ready to share.
I can't do this anymore. But you can. Keep going.
She reached out and took the girl's hand.
"Come on," she said. "We'll find you something to wear."
The girl looked at her, eyes still streaming, nose running, completely fucking helpless.
"Who are you?"
"Jenney. What's your name?"
"Tiffany."
Of course it was.
"Okay, Tiffany. Here's the deal." Jenney pulled her toward the motel room, her grip firm but not rough. "You're going to stop screaming. You're going to stop crying. You're going to put on some clothes and drink some water and then you're going to tell us everything you remember. And then we're going to figure out what to do with you."
"Do with me?"
"You can't stay here. This place isn't safe."
"Where are we going?"
Jenney thought about the helicopter. The direction the man in room four had written on his note. North. Follow the highway north. There's a safe zone.
"I don't know yet," she said. "But somewhere better than this."
They reached the motel room. Jane opened the door before Jenney could knock, her revolver lowered but her eyes sharp.
"Who's this?"
"Tiffany. She's coming with us."
"Of course she is." Jane stepped aside, her voice dripping with something that wasn't quite anger and wasn't quite resignation. "Because we don't have enough problems."
"She has nice hair," Lily said from the corner. "Is that weird to say? I feel like that's weird to say."
"It's weird," Sarah confirmed. "But you're not wrong."
Tiffany stood in the middle of the room, her arms wrapped around herself, her eyes darting from face to face like a trapped animal. She looked at the guns, the bloodstained shirts, the empty cans of soup scattered across the floor.
"What's happening?" she whispered. "What's really happening?"
No one answered.
Jenney pulled one of the spare Rosewood Arms shirts from the backpack and handed it to her. It was too big, would hang past her knees, but it was something. It was a start.
"Put this on," she said. "And then we need to move."
The sun was rising. The city was waking. And somewhere out there, drawn by the scream or the smell or whatever it was that drew them, the dead were coming.
Jenney could feel it. Could feel it in the way the air had changed, in the way the birds had stopped singing, in the way the shadows seemed to shift and stretch like something alive.
"Five minutes," she said. "Grab whatever you can carry. We leave in five minutes."
Tiffany pulled the shirt over her head, her movements slow and uncertain. She looked like a child playing dress-up, like she didn't understand what game she was playing or why everyone else was taking it so seriously.
Jenney almost felt sorry for her.
Almost.
The parking lot was still empty when they emerged—five girls now, armed and afraid and wearing matching t-shirts that advertised a gun store. The BMW sat where they'd left it, sleek and dark and beautiful in the morning light.
It looked different now. Less like a car and more like a lifeline.
"Where are we going?" Jane asked.
Jenney pulled the note from her pocket. Read the words again, even though she'd memorized them hours ago.
North. Follow the highway. There's a safe zone in Rockridge.
"North," she said. "There's a highway about a mile from here. We follow it until we find something."
"Something like what?"
"Something like hope."
They piled into the car—Jenney driving, Destiny riding shotgun with the shotgun, Jane and Lily and Sarah and Tiffany crammed into the back like sardines. Tiffany was still crying, still confused, but she was quiet now. That was something.
Jenney started the engine. The dashboard glowed. The road stretched ahead.
Behind them, the motel sign flickered once, twice, and then went dark.
They drove north.
The highway was a graveyard of abandoned cars, their doors hanging open, their trunks gaping, their windshields spiderwebbed with cracks. Jenney navigated between them like a slalom skier, her hands steady on the wheel, her eyes scanning for threats.
There were bodies. More than she wanted to count. Some were still in their seats, seatbelts fastened, heads lolled back like they'd fallen asleep at the wheel. Others were scattered across the asphalt, their limbs twisted at impossible angles, their flesh torn and chewed.
Tiffany pressed her face against the window and promptly threw up.
"Jesus Christ," Jane said, leaning away. "Seriously?"
"I'm sorry—I'm sorry—I didn't—"
"It's fine." Sarah's voice was gentle, almost maternal. "It's okay. Just—don't look out the window."
"I've never seen—I've never—"
"None of us had. Not before yesterday."
Jenney kept her eyes on the road. The sun was climbing higher now, burning off the dew, casting long shadows across the highway. It should have been beautiful. It should have been just another morning, just another drive to school or work or wherever people used to go before the world ended.
Instead, it was this.
A sign appeared in the distance, green and white and reassuringly normal. ROCKRIDGE 15 MILES.
"Fifteen miles," Jenney said. "We can make that."
"Assuming the road is clear," Destiny said.
"Assuming the road is clear."
They drove in silence for a while, the only sounds the hum of the engine and the occasional thump of a body under the tires. Jenney tried not to think about what they were driving over. Tried not to imagine the faces, the names, the lives that had been snuffed out like candles in a storm.
She failed.
"Jenney?" Lily's voice was small, almost shy. "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Last night. In the club. When we were in the basement. You said something."
"I said a lot of things."
"You said you jumped out a window."
Jenney's hands tightened on the wheel. The memory came back in fragments—the shower, the hands through the curtain, the fall, the pool, the running. The hours of running, of hiding, of trying to find somewhere safe.
"Yeah," she said. "I did."
"Why?"
"Because they were in my apartment. Because if I hadn't jumped, I'd be dead."
"That's not what I mean." Lily leaned forward, her face serious. "I mean—how did you know? That jumping was better than staying? That out there was better than in there?"
Jenney thought about it. Thought about the moment before the fall, the moment when she'd stood on the windowsill, her feet bare, her body wet, her heart pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat.
"I didn't know," she said. "I just knew I couldn't stay."
"What if you'd been wrong?"
"Then I'd be dead."
"And that was okay?"
"No." Jenney looked at Lily in the rearview mirror, her eyes hard and tired. "But it was better than the alternative. It was better than becoming one of them."
Lily nodded slowly. She didn't say anything else.
Tiffany was still crying, but quietly now, her face buried in her hands. Sarah had an arm around her shoulders, a gesture that seemed both awkward and sincere. Jane was staring out the window, her revolver resting on her lap, her jaw set.
Destiny was watching the road ahead, her shotgun ready, her eyes never still.
The miles passed.
The highway curved, and suddenly they were on a bridge—a long, concrete span that arched over a river that had once been beautiful but was now choked with debris and bodies. The water was dark and slow, and things floated in it that Jenney didn't want to identify.
"Look," Destiny said.
Up ahead, at the far end of the bridge, a barricade. Cars and trucks and buses, stacked and tangled and welded together into a wall of metal and glass. Behind it, buildings. Real buildings. Windows and walls and doors.
And on top of the barricade, a figure. A living figure, holding a rifle, wearing what looked like a uniform.
"Someone's there," Jenney said.
"Someone's alive."
The figure raised a hand. Waved.
Jenney pressed the gas.
They had made it.
They had actually made it.
The bridge stretched ahead, and beyond it, the promise of safety. Of walls. Of rest.
Behind them, the city moaned.
But for the first time since this nightmare began, Jenney didn't look back.