Wes woke to the sound of metal dragging across concrete and the smell of gun oil in his mouth. He lay on a folded feed sack behind the diner's serving counter, M4 across his chest, Rascal tucked between his knees like a childhood guardrail. Dawn light leaked through boards RayRay had nailed over the windows the night before, thin blades of sun striping the linoleum in jail-bar patterns.
He sat up slow. Every muscle announced its existence. His right hand throbbed where the rifle stock had kissed it. He flexed fingers, counted them, then counted again because arithmetic felt safer than memory.
RayRay was already moving. The cook worked the dining room in silence, pushing tables against windows, screwing sheet-metal scraps over gaps with a cordless driver that whined like a trapped insect. Sweat slid down his blistered cheek and dripped off his jaw, spotting the floor in dark coins. He did not wipe them.
Wes stood, slung the rifle, and walked to the serving hatch. The parking lot outside looked smaller in daylight, as if the desert had crept closer while they slept. Three bodies lay where they had fallen during the night, including the girl in the prom dress. Coyotes had been at her legs. A blackbird perched on her rib cage, watching the building with head tilted, as though waiting for doors to open and breakfast to resume.
RayRay spoke without turning. "We need water first. Soda syrup won't last. After that, fuel for the generator, then a head count of what's still breathing between here and the highway."
Wes nodded. He understood rank now; RayRay wore it in the set of his shoulders, the way he checked corners before stepping, the way he refused to look at the bodies longer than a second. Wes accepted the order because acceptance was easier than leadership and because the other man had already proven he could kill without hesitation.
They split tasks. RayRay stayed inside to inventory cans and reinforce the front entrance. Wes took a five-gallon jug and a rusted hand-pump, then slipped out the back dock. The air was cool, almost cold, sky the color of brushed steel. He worked the pump beside the loading platform, drawing groundwater that smelled faintly of sulfur. Each clank of the handle echoed off the corrugated wall and rolled across the empty lot like a dinner bell for things he preferred not to imagine.
Halfway through, he heard tires on asphalt. A sedan limped along the frontage road, windshield starred, driver's door crumpled inward. It slowed, turned, and crept into the parking lot before dying thirty feet from the pumps. Steam hissed from under the hood. The driver's silhouette slumped over the wheel.
Wes raised the rifle. Safety clicked off, sound thin in the morning hush. He advanced, slow steps, heart drumming against bone. The window was down. A woman in her thirties lifted her head. Blood had dried in a line from left ear to collar. Her pupils were normal, not milk. She saw the rifle, raised both hands, palms shaking.
"I'm not bit," she said, voice hoarse. "I rolled the car avoiding a crawler. Please."
Wes studied her arms, neck, hairline. No wounds he could see. He lowered the barrel an inch. "You alone?"
She nodded toward the back seat. A boy, maybe six, peered over the edge of a blanket, eyes wide, thumb in mouth. No car seat, just seat belt wrapped twice around his small frame.
Wes felt something shift inside his rib cage, a gear he had not known was there. He stepped back, waved them out. "Come inside. Keep your hands visible. We check you head to toe, no arguments."
The woman exhaled, tears starting. She unbuckled the boy, whispered against his hair. They moved, fragile and slow, across the glass-strewn asphalt. Wes walked backward, rifle ready, eyes sweeping the lot. The blackbird lifted from the girl's ribs and flapped away, unconcerned.
Inside, RayRay met them at the kitchen door. His gaze swept mother and child in one practiced sweep, lingered on the blood trail, then met Wes's eyes. A silent question passed: you sure?
Wes nodded. "They roll clean until proven otherwise."
RayRay stepped aside. "Breakfast is canned peaches and silence. We eat, we talk, we decide who stays and who walks."
The woman hugged her son against her thigh. "Thank you," she whispered, voice cracking like old radio.
Wes secured the door behind them. For the first time since the fryer exploded, he felt the room tilt slightly off its axis; more bodies, more mouths, more chances for mistakes. He checked the rifle's safety twice, then followed them into the gloom, counting heartbeats, measuring trust in inches.
Outside, the sun climbed, heat rising with it. Sirens still sounded far away, fainter now, as if the world beyond the highway had already signed off. The diner sat small under the widening sky, three adults and one child inside, surrounded by canned fruit and ammunition, waiting for the next hour to tell them what part of humanity remained edible.