Story 1246: The Car Crash Pact

The city was burning behind them.

Juno and Shade ran across the overpass, smoke curling up from the morgue like black vines. The Siblings had found them—or been led to them. There was no way to tell anymore.

“We can’t keep running,” Shade said, breathing hard. “We need to disappear.”

Juno glanced over the side of the bridge. Wreckage everywhere. Abandoned vehicles, twisted guardrails, the skeletal remains of a convoy that never made it out. It was the Dead Belt—the border between safe zones and infected territories.

“Down there,” she said. “We might find a working car.”

They climbed down, stepping carefully over charred metal and brittle bones. The silence down here was deceptive. No Siblings, no Infected… yet. Just the weight of bad memories.

Then they saw it.

A black armored vehicle, half-buried in rubble. Mostly intact.

“Could run,” Shade said. “If we can power it.”