Vic screamed.
Tony fired. The muzzle flash lit the room white-hot for an instant. The round punched through Rawlings’ skull, dropping him instantly.
But the damage was done. And Vic, who had only tried to help, had paid the price.
Vic fell backward, clutching his arm. Blood poured between his fingers.
“No,” Veronica whispered. “Oh my God. No…”
Tony was already moving, dragging Vic to the couch as he screamed. “Ok. Ok. Come with me buddy.” Tony looked at Veronica who sat on the floor, eyes watering. “Veronica!”
Veronica snapped out of it and grabbed the first aid kit, settling to the ground next to Vic. Tony and Veronica cleaned and began applying direct pressure to the wound.
But they both knew it was too late.
They’d just watched it happen to Rawlings. They knew exactly how this thing moved.
Vic looked at Tony, eyes wide with the realization of what was coming.
His breathing grew increasingly shallow as he whispered “I’m sorry. I should have…I should have stayed back.”
“Don’t,” Tony said, taking Vic’s hand into both of his. “This isn’t on you. This is on me. I’m sorry, brother.”
Tony felt the weight of his decision to open the door for Rawlings. The decision to try to save someone.
Tony shook his head to refocus. He looked at JoeJoe, standing horrified by what had just happened. “JoeJoe. Take my gun. You and Memo go cover that back door.”
They nodded and disappeared into the rear office area.
The bite was deep. Ragged. Swollen.
And the skin around it was already changing.
Black veins began spidering outward from the wound, pulsing faintly, like something alive beneath the surface. The discoloration crept visibly, millimeter by millimeter, following the paths of blood vessels.
Michael stared. “That’s… that’s spreading.”
“Same thing that happened to Rawlings,” Hutch said quietly.
Vic saw it too.
“Oh God,” Vic whispered, staring at his arm as the black veins crept upward beneath the skin. “Tony… please.”
Tony swallowed hard and went back to work with Veronica. The two of them did everything they could think to do. He tightened the pressure bandage until Vic grimaced. Veronica handed over painkillers and antibiotics. Tony got a makeshift tourniquet onto Vic’s arm and cinched it tight. None of it mattered. The black spiderwebbing kept moving while pulsating slow and steady.
Within an hour it had passed Vic’s elbow.
He began shivering so hard his hiking boots knocked against the heardwood. Sweat soaked through his shirt despite the cold air inside the ranger station. The skin around his eyes had visibly darkened, fine black lines pushing outward like cracks through glass.
“I’m burning up,” Vic muttered. His voice was tired and raspy. “Feels like fire in my bones.”
“I’m here with ya, bud.” Tony said, placing a hand on Vic’s shoulder.
The others took turns coming to him after that, one by one, as though they already understood what was happening even if no one wanted to say it out loud. Michael and Chelsey knelt beside him together clinging to him for a moment before pulling away.
JoeJoe crouched near his head and recounted a funny story from high school. He told Vic he loved him, voice breaking halfway through.
Memo did the same, before pressing his forehead against Vic’s for a moment.
Jackie cried openly and Veronica, tears streaming down her face, told Vic how brave he was.
When everyone finally cleared, Veronica checked his pulse again. Her fingers stayed on his wrist longer this time.
It was weak.
Too weak.
But it was also racing, like his heart was trying to outrun the collapse of his body.
She looked at Tony, and the fear in her face hit him harder than anything she could have said.
Tony took his place next to Vic again.
“I’m scared,” Vic whispered hoarsely. He looked at Tony, his eyes wide with fear. “I don’t want to die.”
Tony took his hand, squeezing tightly, with tears in his eyes. “I know, buddy. I’m right here with you. I’m not going anywhere.”
Outside, somewhere across the campground, a woman screamed.
The sound rose high and sharp through the trees, human and full of terror, then cut off abruptly. Silence pressed in after it.
Inside the station, no one moved.
Tony glanced around the room. Michael, Chelsey and Jackie had fallen asleep bunched together on a sofa in the corner of the room. JoeJoe and Memo took turns looking in on Vic’s situation from the back office. Hutch maintained watch at the front but kept an eye on the situation.
By three hours post-bite, the black veins had spread far beyond the tourniquet and reached Vic’s shoulder. The veins stood out thick and black beneath the skin, branching and twisting over the biceps and collarbone.
His face had changed too. The flesh around his eyes and mouth had darkened outward in bruised, ugly shades. His lips were now a deep purple shade.
His breathing turned rough and uneven, each inhale catching halfway in his chest before dragging the rest of the way in. His eyes fluttered open now and then, but remained unfocused.
When Tony spoke to him, Vic sometimes reacted and sometimes didn’t, as if he were already drifting too far away to hear.
Hutch checked his watch. “Timeline’s fast.” He said quietly.
“How fast?” JoeJoe asked, voice tight and thin.
Hutch didn’t look away from Vic. “Hours.”
Soon, Vic stopped responding altogether.
He lay still on the floor, sweat cooling on his skin, breaths growing quieter and farther apart. Every now and then a tremor ran through him, small and involuntary, a twitch in the fingers, a jerk in the jaw, a sudden tightening in the neck.
Tony stayed beside him, refusing to move.
Hutch took the pistol from JoeJoe and stood nearby. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Tony couldn’t bring himself to take it. Not yet. Not while Vic was still lying there with Tony’s hand on his shoulder, not while some part of him still might have been there.
Just before dawn, Vic convulsed.
It started with his fingers curling into his palms so hard the knuckles cracked. Then his arms drew tight against his sides. A violent spasm ripped through him and his back arched off the floor, heels digging in, shoulders lifting, tendons standing out in his neck like cables. His jaw snapped shut with enough force to crack a tooth. A wet, gurgling sound tore out of his throat.
His eyes snapped open. Clouded. Discolored. Empty.
Hutch fired the Glock. Clean into Vic’s skull.
The sound echoed through the ranger station like another small explosion.
Hutch lowered the pistol slowly, controlled and deliberate, like if he moved too fast the moment might catch up to him. He had seen men die before. It never got easier when it was someone who’s name Hutch had known.
Hutch turned, handed the pistol back to JoeJoe and returned to the front door. No one else moved. JoeJoe and Memo lowered their heads with tears in their eyes. Michael and the girls sobbed quietly and hugged each other. Tony held Vic’s hand on the floor for a few moments longer, quietly sobbing.
Four hours. From bite to… monster.
Tony stood slowly, exhaustion settling into his bones. He wiped the tears from his face and turned to address the group.
“Rule one,” he said quietly. “A bite is a death sentence. Four hours…” He looked at Hutch, who nodded. “Four hours from bite… to this.” He indicated the dead infected on the ground. That wasn’t Vic and Rawlings on the ground anymore. They were monsters.
No one argued. They had learned the truth the hard way.
Four hours, from bite – to monster.
The sky outside had shifted from black to grey. First light was coming, but the sun hadn’t crested the horizon yet. The world existed in that minimal space between night and day where nothing felt fully real.
Memo stood at the threshold between the lobby and office, arms folded, staring at Vic’s body. He hadn’t moved since Vic died. Hadn’t spoken. Just watched the body lying on the couch with the expression of a man cataloging his own mortality.
Tony understood what Memo was thinking because he was thinking it too: That could have been any of us.
Tony stepped beside him.
For a moment, neither spoke.
“Lucia…” Memo said finally. His eyes glistening.
“I know,” Tony said.
Memo’s jaw clenched. “We have to get there. Now. Before things get worse. Before-”
“I know.” Tony said, nodding. He placed a reassuring hand on Memo’s shoulder.
Memo turned to look at him, eyes raw. “Before something happens to her.”
Tony met his gaze. “Something’s already happening to her. It’s happening everywhere. Right now, in this moment, your daughter is at her grandparents’ house. She’s scared, probably. But she’s hopefully alive. And she’s not alone.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“No,” Tony said. “But it’s the truth. And we work with truth, not fear.”
Memo looked away.
Tony continued, voice steady. “Listen to me. We can’t move today because we don’t have enough information. We don’t know what’s between here and the valley and we don’t know how fast this is spreading or what we’re going to face.”
“So what? We just wait? And hope?” Memo asked, incredulously.
“No,” Tony said. “We plan. We figure out the safest route. We gather what we need and we move deliberately instead of desperately.”
Memo’s fists clenched. “You’re asking me to not go get my daughter, bro.”
“No,” Tony said. “I’m asking you to give us a few days to try to get organized. Let the worst of this – whatever it is – die down. Then, together, we’ll plan and go get her.”
Tony paused, letting that land.
“I will get you to your daughter,” Tony said, tears in his eyes. “But I’m going to do it in a way that gets you there alive. And that means we can’t move until we have more information and a solid plan.”
Memo was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was rough. “What if we don’t make it?”
“Memo,” Tony said, unwavering. “We ARE going to make it. You’ve got me and Hutch, and we know what we’re doing. And you’ve got a reason that matters more than your own life, which means you’re equally focused.”
Memo nodded slowly. They’d been friends for decades and Memo had always trusted Tony.
“How long till we actually move?” Memo asked.
“Days,” Tony said honestly. “Maybe a week. But we do this right, and your daughter gets her father back.”
Memo swallowed hard. He looked at Vic’s body one more time, then back at Tony, tears streaming down his face.
“Okay,” he said quietly.
The sky continued to lighten. Behind them, the others were beginning to stir. Exhausted and traumatized, but alive.
Tony knew what the day would bring: difficult decisions, hard truths, and the constant weight of keeping people safe when safety could no longer be guaranteed.
But it would bring something else too: purpose.
And purpose, Tony learned during his many years as a Non-Commissioned Officer in the U.S. military, was the only thing that kept people moving forward when everything else was falling apart.