Humans lied.
Not with words—Ash couldn't fully understand those—but with their bodies. Their too-loud laughter, their trembling hands, the way their eyes darted like prey even as they aimed weapons. The man with the rifle was no different.
Lila called him *Garrett*. Ash called him *Danger*.
---
They found him at noon.
Lila had insisted on backtracking, her fingers tight around her knife. "we saw the smoke at dawn," she'd said, though Ash didn't know *smoke*. He knew fire—the crackle, the heat, the way it turned nests to ash. But he followed, drawn by the uneasy tilt of her voice.
Garrett's camp was a gutted gas station, its roof sagging under the weight of crows. He sat by a fire, a rabbit skewered on a spit, his rifle propped against a pump. Ash smelled: gunpowder, blood, and beneath it, the sour tang of fear in him.
"Don't," Lila whispered, grabbing Ash's scruff as he bristled. "He's got food. And bullets. We need both."
Ash didn't care about bullets. He cared about the way Garrett's gaze snagged on Lila's backpack, hungry and calculating.
---
Garrett was all teeth. A smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"Well, look what the cats dragged in.
Lila stiffened.
"Heard the resistance chattering. They're all hunting that immune kitten—Subject 9A." He tore a strip of rabbit meat, grease glistening on his fingers. "Lab's a death trap. Rot-walkers packed in there like sardines."
*Rot-walkers*. Ash's ears twitched. A better word than *monsters*. It fit the things' lurching gait, the way their flesh sloughed like rotten fruit.
Lila edged closer to the fire. "You've been to the lab?"
"Once. Got this from the parking lot." Garrett tossed her a keycard, its edges crusted with dried blood. "Swipe it at the east gate."
"Why help us?"
"Call it… sentimental." His smile widened. "Your daddy saved my brother. Before the world went to hell."
"You know my father?"
Ash hissed. *Lie*, his instincts screamed. *Lie, lie, lie.*
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
---
Garrett offered to escort them. "a kid and a cat won't last an hour out here," he said, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. Lila agreed, her hope a bright, fragile thing.
They hadn't walked half a mile when the rot-walkers found them.
Three of them, maybe once a family—a man, a woman, a child—their skin mottled gray, their mouths gaping holes. The child's jaw hung by a tendon, clicking as it lurched toward Lila.
Garrett fired.
The shot tore through the silence. The child-rot's skull exploded, painting the asphalt black. Lila screamed. Ash's claws unsheathed, his pulse a drumbeat in his ears.
"Run!" Garrett barked, shoving Lila toward an alley. "They'll come to the noise!"
They did.
Dozens of them, drawn by the gunshot, their groans harmonizing into a dreadful chorus. Ash leapt onto a dumpster, yowling to distract them. A rot-walker with a mangled arm swiped at him, but Garrett's bullet took it down.
"This way!" Garrett hauled Lila into a boarded-up diner, Ash darting between their legs.
---
The diner stank of mildew and rust. Moonlight bled through cracks in the boards, slicing the dark into jagged lines. Lila crouched behind a counter, her breath ragged. Garrett reloaded his rifle, his hands steady.
"Why'd you really help us?" Lila whispered.
Garrett paused. "Your dad's journal. The resistance want it. Says how to ID Subject 9A."
Ash's fur rose. *The journal.*
Lila recoiled. "You're a scavenger."
"Everyone scavenges now, kid. Even you." His gaze flicked to her backpack. "But I'll cut you a deal. You give me the journal, I get you to the lab. No bullets in your back. Promise."
Lila's hand crept to her pack. Ash saw the glint of her knife.
"Don't," Garrett warned. "You'll bring every rot-walker in the county down on us."
A thud shook the door. Then another. The rot-walkers were coming.
---
Garrett pressed his ear to the door. "Back exit. Through the kitchen. Move."
Lila didn't move. "The journal's gone. Burned."
*Lie*, Ash marveled. Humans *could* learn.
Garrett's jaw tightened. "Then we're all dead."
The door splintered. A clawed hand groped through the crack. Ash lunged, biting down on the rotting fingers. The taste—putrid, chemical—made him gag, but he held on.
"Kitchen!" Garrett shouted.
They ran, Ash trailing the stench of rot. The kitchen was a tomb of rusted appliances, the back door chained shut. Garrett slammed his rifle butt against the lock.
"Hurry!" Lila begged.
The rot-walkers flooded the diner, their moans echoing off the tiles. Ash leapt onto a fridge, his claws screeching against metal. Below, the child-rot crawled, its shattered skull leaking black ooze.
The chain broke. Cold air rushed in.
"Go!" Garrett shoved Lila outside, turning to fire at the horde.
Ash leapt after her—then froze.
Garrett wasn't following.
---
"Go, you idiot!" Garrett snarled, but his eyes were on Lila. "Get to the lab. Find 9A."
"Why?" Lila cried.
He didn't answer. A rot-walker seized his arm, teeth sinking into his shoulder. Garrett roared, emptying his rifle into the crowd.
Lila ran. Ash followed, the gunshots fading behind them.
---
They didn't stop until the sun rose, painting the sky in feverish reds. Lila collapsed against a highway guardrail, her sobs raw and gasping. Ash nudged her hand, unsure.
"He… he saved us," she choked. "Why?"
Ash didn't know. Humans were contradictions.
But in Garrett's final moments, Ash had smelled it—the shift in his scent. Gunpowder to grief. Lies to truth.
Lila unzipped her backpack, pulling out a leather-bound journal. The Scientist's. *"Subject 9A exhibits no viral replication… potential for antigenic resistance…"*
Ash. Thought of Garrett's smile, all teeth and lies. Of his blood, black and bubbling.
*Rot-walkers started human*, he realized. Maybe heroes did too.
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**End of Chapter 4**
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