Jeff ate slower, but his hands shook slightly around the bowl, and he closed his eyes on the first bite and kept them closed for a long moment.
Nobody spoke for a while.
Just the quiet sound of spoons against bowls. The soft bubble of sauce still simmering on the stove.
Four people sharing a hot meal in a dark building at the end of the world.
It shouldn’t have meant as much as it did.
But it meant everything.
Twenty Five
Callan
The director’s office had become our little command center: two desks pushed together, the desk light casting a soft yellow glow, the chairs we’d dragged in earlier from the main lobby forming a rough square around the table.
Jeff finished his second bowl of spaghetti and leaned back, rubbing his face with both hands.
“Jesus,” he muttered. “That might be the best meal I’ve ever eaten.”
Ethan laughed softly through a mouthful of bread. “I told you we should’ve docked days ago.”
“You also told me zombies weren’t real,” Jeff replied dryly.
That earned a tired chuckle from everyone.
Sloane sat beside me on the couch, her knee barely brushing mine. The contact—small—sent a quiet currentthrough me that I couldn’t ignore. She seemed relaxed, listening as Jeff talked about the last few days at sea.
The fishing rig had been out when everything escalated. Jeff had made the call to stay offshore instead of trying to dock in Gloucester when the first reports crackled over the radio.
“Figured the ocean beat a city,” he said. “Turned out I wasn’t wrong.”
“But supplies…” Sloane asked gently.
Jeff nodded, his jaw tightening. “That’s where it fell apart.”
He glanced at Ethan, who worked slowly through a third piece of bread, savoring it as if it might be his last.
“We stretched everything, rationed hard.” He rubbed his beard. “Honestly, I’d about decided to risk docking somewhere.”
I nodded. “You probably would’ve walked straight into a death trap.”
The room stilled as I leaned forward, elbows on my knees.
“There’s something I need to tell you all.”
Sloane turned to me immediately. She heard the shift.
“What is it?”
I exhaled. “This morning, when I went up to the roof… I got a clear look at the parking lot. Of all thethingsdown there.”
Jeff straightened. “And?”
I ran a hand through my hair. “There are a lot of them.”
Ethan stopped chewing. “How many is a lot?”