Wil hadn’t bothered to pay much attention to the garage when he, Matsuda, and Rosa had passed it while going to retrieve their belongings. He’d known it had one of those rocks in it that had turned Ranger Sandoval into that thing, and that was enough for him to keep clear. But he trusted Matsuda enough to go take a peek. He still wasn’t going into the garage first, however. He didn’t trust Matsuda that much.

The old man opened the door that lead into the garage from the house and clicked his flashlight on. The main garage door had become unhinged and broken off during the impact, and the ceiling had a sizable hole in it. The truck itself was tilted forward, its front tires burst open from the sudden pressure on the front end, and the hood and engine were crushed into a near shapeless mass of partially melted metal and scrap.

Wil first glanced past Matsuda’s shoulder at the open garage, and saw that the street was still vacant, then turned his gaze to where the old man’s flashlight pointed. The strong white beam was centered on a small crater in the floor of the garage, in which a roughly spherical rock bigger than Wil’s torso sat, cracked in two.

The outer surface of the rock was pockmarked with countless dimples and miniature craters, like a scale model of an asteroid. It was shale gray, and something like mucus had dried in shining streaks down the sides. It could have been a boring old boulder on the side of the road.

The inside was another matter.

The inside was organic. It was lined with a wet, glistening weave of fibrous muscle, but colored dark gray with black veins running through it. Unlike the creatures that stalked the streets, these veins were still, and the “musculature” of the rock did not stir.

It wasn’t just dark muscles and veins, however: holes about the size of a child’s fist were clustered together in groups of five or ten throughout the interior of the rock.

No, not holes, more like…pockets, Wil thought. The fleshy pockets sagged, as if whatever had been in them had been the only thing holding them up. They looked oddly familiar to Wil, and then it struck him.

“They look like…empty seed pods,” Wil said.

“Mm. And there,” Matsuda said and moved his flashlight. He pointed a few inches in front of where the rock had split open and some of that black slime had dried. There were a number of ovular, opaque gray shapes that could only be thought of as eggs. Each was a little bigger than a chicken egg, and all of them were split open. They looked as if they were made of very, transparent leather. They had pebbling across their surfaces, and the faint outline of where veins might have been.

Matsuda moved his flashlight further away, towards the garage’s ruined entry and exit to the street. A number of tiny dots, made from the dried black sludge, formed a pathway from the eggs to the street.

“Footprints,” Wil said. “So it’s not just some slime or goop or a mess of worms that got Ranger Sandoval. It was whatever hatched. This thing isn’t an asteroid, it’s like a…”

“Like a seed pod,” Matsuda replied. “As you said. The Gutierrez family is absurdly lucky these things went for the street and not the house.”

“They can’t be that big, though,” Wil said. “The one I was drawing was bigger than both of my hands put together. These things would have to be half that size, maybe smaller, to fit in those eggs.”

“Whatever these things are, they’re entirely alien. The ones that came from these eggs could look wildly different from the one upstairs. They could grow at a phenomenal rate, they could compress themselves, they could do anything for all we know,” Matsuda said.

“I’ll add it to the list,” Wil said. “Rock seed-pods release bad shit. Did you find us some bikes?”

“Yes, we’ll have our selection from a few.”

“Good because we picked up a third,” Wil said.

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“The young lady?” Matsuda asked.

“Yeah. Turns out she’d rather be mobile than here waiting for Raul.”

“Smart. This place is too open. Speaking of which, we need to be moving. We do not want to be caught out when it starts to get dark.”

“Speaking of, the fog’s lifted a bit more, but it’s still really dark out there for being the afternoon.”

“Mm. I’ve noticed. More bad news.”

“I’ll go get Qadira and tell Rosa we’re taking off,” Wil said.

“I’ve said my good-byes. I’ll organize our supplies since we have a third while you’re downstairs. There’s another backpack somewhere around here Ranger Gutierrez said we could have if we needed it. Don’t take too long down there.”

“Will do,” Wil said and left Matsuda to pack.

He found Qadira waiting next to the bottom of the basement stairs as she tucked a knife into one of her boots. Rosa glanced up as he descended and he offered her an awkward smile.

“We’re getting ready to go,” Wil said.

“We’re staying,” Rosa said and Wil nodded.

“Qadira told me. It’s why she’s leaving too. I know you don’t want to go into the city, and if I’m being honest, I don’t either. But I think Qadira’s right: you’re all way too exposed in this place. Even another house that had a working front door would be better.

“I know, believe me, I do. Mama and Papa are worried that if Raul comes back and doesn’t find anybody, then he’ll just run off somewhere. I’ve offered to stay behind while they move into a house a few doors down that still looks locked up pretty tight. They’re still a bit reluctant to leave. They’ve lived here for forty years. And Mama thinks the military will be here any second now.”

“Rosa, you know…”

“Yeah, I know. If the military was gonna be here, they would’ve been already. We heard jets yesterday, so maybe that was them already. Either way, it means the problem’s big enough that there isn’t going to be a cavalry,” Rosa said and crossed her arms over her chest. “Mama is stubborn.”

“I’m ready when you are,” Qadira said behind Wil. He gave her a curt nod before turning back to Rosa.

“Look, I just wanted to thank you. You saved my ass, and I just hope everything works out. And I’m sorry about O’Donnell.”

“You saved mine too. And I have a feeling that people dying is gonna become a much bigger part of living now,” Rosa said. “You mind if I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“Were you going to kill yourself before you found out the world was ending?”

Wil blinked. He’d never directly told anybody about his ideation or possible intentions besides Dr. Carroll. He figured that Naomi knew, at least on some level, but he’d never really said anything overt to her and she’d likely been too scared to ask him.

Wil had gotten so used to lying about how he felt, what he was thinking of doing that a new lie should have been easily summoned.

But it wasn’t. He found his usual mechanisms of joking about or deflecting any serious questions about his mental health suddenly malfunctioning under the ranger’s direct question and steady gaze.

“Yes. That’s why I went up there,” he said quietly enough so only she could hear. There was no strong emotion in his voice, he was just stating a simple fact. They sky is cloudy, water is wet, he went to Oak Rest to hang himself.

Rosa didn’t react much either, only nodded and let out a breath.

“I would’ve had to have cleaned you up, you know. Taken you down from the rafter, called your family, whoever,” she said. “You wouldn’t have been the first camper I’ve had to do that for.”

“I see. I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t sorry. Just don’t be stupid. I’ve had to make that call three times and they’ve been some of the worst moments of my life. No matter what you think, there is always somebody who is going to miss you. Guaranteed. And if nothing else, it’s fucking selfish to put somebody else through cleaning up a suicide. It isn’t a pleasant process.”

“No, I suppose not,” Wil said.

“Life is cheap right now,” Rosa continued, “who knows how many people have died in the last day. If you’d have gone through with it yesterday, me and Matsuda would be dead. I’d never have seen my family again. Just…shit, man, we need all the people we can get right now. Don’t go looking for death. It’s already looking for all of us.”

Wil sighed and nodded.

Rosa gripped his hand tight, shook it, and patted him on the shoulder.

“Go find your girlfriend. Maybe try and meet us at the Air National Guard Outpost after,” she said.

“We will. Thank you, Rosa.”

“Good luck, Wil.”

“Finally,” Qadira said as Wil gave a final wave to the rest of the Gutierrez family, thanked them, and walked up the stairs. “I was thinking I might as well settle in with the family there after all.”

“You know for somebody who sounded terrified of Portland a while ago, you sound pretty eager to leave now,” Wil said. Matsuda was waiting by the door to the garage, one pack on his pack, another two in his hands. Wil took one while Qadira took the other.

“Once I’ve made up my mind, I like to follow through,” Qadira said.

“Well try to be patient,” Matsuda said. “We’re not just going to pedal as hard as we can for the city. That’d be a good way to get killed. Just follow me, keep your weapons handy, and your eyes open.”

“Aye aye, cap’n,” Qadira said as the three of them mounted the bicycles the Gutierrez family had given them.

“And try to stay as quiet as possible,” Matsuda added, then pedaled silently away at a leisurely pace. Qadira followed, with Wil in the rear, and the three left Rosa and the rest of her family behind.