The riot van tore through the night, a wounded metal beast fleeing a burning city. The roar of its engine was the only sound that mattered, a steady, powerful thrum that slowly devoured the screams and the chaos behind them. Quinn kept his foot pressed hard on the accelerator, his eyes fixed on the empty stretch of highway unfolding in the headlights. He did not look in the rearview mirror. He did not need to. The hell he had unleashed was a brilliant, horrific orange glow that filled the cab, painting their grim faces in the colors of fire and destruction.
For miles, no one spoke. The silence inside the van was a fragile, hollow thing, filled with the ghosts of what they had just endured. The sheer, deafening roar of the explosion, the inhuman shriek of thousands of infected drawn to the flames, the desperate, bloody scramble to the van—the memories were seared into them, too fresh, too raw for words. They were alive, a fact so improbable it felt like a dream.
