Part 6

Alex woke to the sound of voices that weren't supposed to be there.

Not loud. Not panicked. Just whispers—tight and urgent—threaded with the soft scrape of shoes against tile. For a moment he lay still, unsure if he was dreaming, the cold of the freezer gnawing into his bones.

Then Mary spoke.

"Everyone up," she whispered. "Quiet."

Alex sat up too fast, pain flaring like a struck match in his ribs. "More people?" he murmured, fear creeping into his throat.

They slipped out of the freezer one by one. The kitchen looked the same—dead stainless steel, counters like tombstones—but the air felt different now. Heavier. Expectant.

Mary and Tyler stood by the kitchen door, heads tilted, listening like hunters. Nathan was awake, Keira clutched to him. Stanley and Sadie slept on, tangled together. Dacre and Avril breathed slow and deep, oblivious.

The whispers grew clearer. Close.

"We'll be safe here... right?" Alex asked, barely louder than breath.

Mary didn't look at him. "For now."

She finally turned, her eyes dark hollows in the dim light. "But not forever."

She studied Alex for a beat too long, like she was measuring him for something unseen. "And we need to decide what to do about—"

"About what?" Alex cut in.

Mary's gaze slid past him, toward the freezer and to Sadie and Stanley. "About them."

Before he could ask what she meant, the kitchen door shuddered.

Once. Twice.

Then again—harder.

Everyone froze.

"Shh," Alex breathed.

Something slammed into the door, heavy and furious. The metal rang with each impact. Aliyah pressed against Alex, shaking. Mary raised a finger, commanding silence without a word.

Then—nothing.

The sudden quiet was worse.

They waited. Seconds stretched thin and brittle. Alex counted his heartbeats and lost track somewhere past twenty.

"I think..." Mary finally whispered, voice unsteady despite herself, "I think they moved on."

Alex let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. "Thank God."

Nathan pulled Keira closer. Dacre stirred. Stanley groaned awake, Sadie murmuring his name.

Alex drew Mary aside. "You were saying something about Stanley and Sadie."

She led him to the shadows near the prep sinks. "I don't like what I'm seeing," she said softly. "Sadie's emotions are all over the place. Shock does that—but Stanley..."

She hesitated.

"Stanley what?"

"He's wound too tight," Mary said. "Jokes one minute. Teeth the next. That kind of pressure cracks people."

Alex frowned. "He's my friend."

"I know." Her voice gentled. "But I've seen men like him when the world falls apart. And when he looks at Sadie..." She shook her head. "There's something possessive there. Hungry."

"That's not fair," Alex said, heat rising. "They've been through hell."

"So have you," Mary said quietly.

The words landed strange. Heavy.

"Just watch them," she finished. "Trust your instincts."

Before Alex could answer, Tyler appeared in the doorway, face drained of color.

"Guys," he said. "You need to see this."

Alex's stomach tightened. "See what?"

"Just—come here."

They followed him into the dining room. The booths sat empty beneath the flickering neon glow bleeding through the windows.

Everyone stood clustered near the window, breathing shallow, as if oxygen itself might betray them.

"What is it?" Alex asked.

No one answered right away. They didn't need to. The looks on their faces said enough.

Nathan and Keira were pressed together. Dacre stood stiff as a scarecrow, Avril's hand clamped around his wrist so tightly her knuckles had gone white. Stanley and Sadie were on their knees, staring at the floor.

Tyler stepped aside.

That was when Alex saw it.

A hand lay on the tile, palm up, fingers curled inward as if still trying to grab onto the person it had once belonged to. The cut at the wrist was ragged, wet, and fresh. Blood crept outward in a thin, shiny line, seeping into the cracks of the floor like it was searching for someplace to hide. Beside it sat a small piece of paper, crumpled and stained.

For a second, Alex's mind refused to accept it. A hand wasn't something that belonged on a kitchen floor. Hands belonged to people. Hands waved, touched, held. They didn't just... lie there.

Stanley reached for the note. His fingers trembled so badly Alex thought he might drop it before he even picked it up.

"Well?" Alex said, his voice sounding far away, like it belonged to someone else. "What does it say?"

Stanley swallowed. His eyes moved as he read, and whatever color he had left drained out of his face.

"Two down," he said quietly. "Three to go."

He let the paper fall as if it had burned him and scrambled backward on his hands, breathing too fast, too loud. Nathan swore—a sharp, ugly word that bounced off the walls and made everyone flinch.

"What does that even mean?" Alex asked.

"I don't know," Mary said, her voice tight, brittle. "But nothing good ever talks like that."

Tyler cleared his throat. The sound was small, nervous. "Guys," he said. "There's more."

He pointed toward the window.

They all turned.

Outside, the parking lot lay soaked in darkness, the dim glow of a single flickering light barely pushing it back. Shapes stood out there—three, maybe four of them. People. Or things close enough to people to pass at a distance.

One of the figures raised an arm.

Alex squinted.

"Is that a gu—"

BANG.

The sound exploded through the room. Pain tore through Alex's arm like fire ripping through dry paper. He staggered, his mouth opening in a gasp that turned into something wet and ugly.

"Fuck," he managed, blood bubbling up where it didn't belong.

Another BANG.

This one hit lower.

The world tilted. The floor rushed up to meet him, and suddenly he was there, staring at the ceiling as if it might offer some explanation for what was happening. It didn't. The pain in his stomach was worse—hot, deep, swallowing everything else.

Screams broke out. Someone shouted his name. Someone else yelled to get away from the windows.

Mary was there—she always seemed to be there—dropping to her knees beside him, her hands already pressing down, trying to hold him together.

"Stay with me," she said, her voice breaking. "Alex, stay with me."

Blood soaked her hands, warm and slippery. Too much of it.

Stanley was shouting about going after them, his voice wild and cracked, while Dacre yelled back that they'd all be dead in seconds if they tried. Nathan dragged Keira behind the wall, shielding her with his body. Sadie was crying—not loud, not hysterical, just a thin, broken sound that kept going and going.

The gunshots didn't come again.

That was almost worse.

Alex felt himself drifting, the edges of the room blurring, sounds stretching and warping like a bad tape. The last thing he saw before the dark took him was Mary's face above his, streaked with tears and blood that wasn't hers.

Then everything went black.