Surviving the Apocalypse With My Yandere Ex-Girlfriend

Chapter 246: Your final destination

The forest swallowed them whole.

Snow exploded beneath boots that had long since stopped feeling anything.

Nobody bothered counting how long they’d been running.

Every breath burned.

Every heartbeat felt borrowed.

The only thing that mattered was putting one more tree between themselves and whatever had turned that road into a slaughterhouse.

Hale was the first to slow.

He didn’t stop.

He simply lifted one hand.

The signal rippled backward.

Naomi reduced her pace first.

Then Aubrey.

Cherie.

Terri nearly stumbled into the back of Isabella before realizing they weren’t sprinting anymore.

The silence hit them almost immediately.

No gunfire.

No engines.

No screaming.

Only wind threading through frozen branches.

Hale bent slightly, both hands resting against his knees as he tried to steady his breathing.

His lungs protested every inhale.

Years ago, he’d have kept running.

Years ago, he still believed exhaustion was something you could ignore.

Now he knew better.

You ignored your body...

...and your body eventually ignored you.

Naomi scanned the trees without lowering her rifle.

"I don’t hear them."

Nobody answered.

Because they didn’t either.

Aubrey leaned one shoulder against a pine tree, trying to quiet the pounding inside her chest.

Her wrists were raw where the ropes had finally given way.

Blood had dried in uneven streaks across her skin.

She barely noticed anymore.

Terri doubled over before emptying what little remained in her stomach into the snow.

Nothing much came up.

Just bitter saliva.

She wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her jacket, embarrassed more than anything.

"...Sorry."

Cherie didn’t even look at her.

"You don’t apologize for surviving."

Terri lowered her eyes.

"...Right."

Another silence settled over them.

Heavy.

Uncomfortable.

Nobody wanted to acknowledge what they’d left behind.

Bill.

Harry.

The convoy.

The men who’d died.

The infected.

It all felt strangely distant now.

Like something they’d watched happen to somebody else.

Hale finally straightened.

"We keep moving."

Aubrey frowned.

"...Already?"

He looked at her.

"They know where we came from."

Naomi nodded once.

"And they’ll keep searching."

Aubrey opened her mouth to argue—

Then stopped.

Something didn’t feel right.

Not wrong.

Just...

Incomplete.

She slowly turned her head.

Listened.

Nothing.

No laughter.

No branches snapping.

No bodies crashing through the undergrowth.

After everything that had happened...

The silence should’ve been comforting.

Instead...

It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand.

"...Hale."

He looked over.

"What?"

She hesitated.

"I think..."

She swallowed.

"...I think we’re supposed to hear them."

Nobody laughed.

Nobody dismissed it.

Because the thought had already crossed every one of their minds.

Naomi slowly crouched, brushing fresh snow away with the back of her glove.

The ground beneath was disturbed.

Not by one set of footprints.

By dozens.

She frowned harder.

"...These are fresh."

Hale knelt beside her.

Human?

No.

Boots?

Some.

Bare feet?

Most.

Some prints ended abruptly.

Others overlapped.

None of them wandered.

They all moved in the same direction.

North.

Naomi followed them with her eyes.

"...That’s strange."

"What’s strange?" Aubrey asked.

Naomi pointed without looking up.

"They’re organized."

Hale’s expression shifted.

She was right.

This wasn’t random movement.

It wasn’t what a wandering horde left behind.

There were no circles.

No hesitation.

No scattered tracks chasing prey.

Just...

Lines.

As though hundreds of infected had calmly walked the exact same route.

One after another.

Aubrey stared at the snow.

"...That doesn’t make any sense."

"It doesn’t," Hale agreed quietly.

"...Which means it probably happened."

Nobody liked that answer.

The wind picked up again.

Loose snow drifted between the trees.

Then—

Crunch.

Everyone froze.

One sound.

Off to their left.

Not running.

Walking.

Measured.

Hale raised his rifle.

Nothing.

The woods stood perfectly still.

Crunch.

This time...

To their right.

Cherie slowly turned her head.

"...Did anybody see that?"

"See what?" Terri whispered.

"I thought..."

Cherie narrowed her eyes between two pines.

"...Never mind."

Aubrey didn’t think it was never mind.

Because she’d seen it too.

For less than a second.

A silhouette.

Standing completely still.

Watching.

Then...

Gone.

No footsteps.

No laughter.

Nothing.

Hale lowered his voice.

"...We’re leaving."

Nobody argued.

Nobody even asked where.

They simply started walking again.

This time...

Every single one of them kept glancing into the trees.

The forest became quieter the farther they went.

That should have been a good thing.

Aubrey had spent months learning that silence was usually better than noise.

Noise meant movement.

Noise meant danger.

Noise meant something was close enough to hurt you.

But this silence?

This felt wrong.

Because they weren’t alone.

They all knew it.

Nobody had said it out loud since Hale first pointed it out, but every person in the group felt it.

The infected were still there.

They weren’t charging.

They weren’t screaming.

They weren’t throwing themselves through the trees anymore.

They were simply...

Following.

Aubrey hated that more than anything.

She would have preferred the madness from before.

The chaos.

The screaming.

The gunfire.

At least then there was something honest about it.

There was no pretending.

No thinking.

No planning.

Just survival.

But this?

This was something else.

She looked over her shoulder again.

Nothing.

Only trees.

Only snow.

Only the faint movement of branches.

She turned back.

And nearly ran into Hale.

He had stopped.

Everyone behind him slowly followed.

Naomi looked at him.

"What?"

Hale didn’t answer immediately.

His eyes were fixed on the ground.

Not fear.

Not confusion.

Calculation.

Aubrey stepped closer.

"What is it?"

Hale pointed.

At first, she didn’t understand what she was looking at.

Then she did.

Their tracks.

Their footprints.

The path they had taken.

Aubrey frowned.

"So?"

Hale looked up.

"We’ve been walking in a circle."

The words landed harder than they should have.

Terri immediately shook her head.

"No."

Hale looked at her.

"We have."

"No, we haven’t."

Terri looked around frantically.

"We’ve been going straight."

Naomi crouched.

She brushed snow away.

There were old marks underneath.

Not theirs.

Older tracks.

Overlapping.

Following a pattern.

She slowly stood.

"He’s right."

Terri stared.

"What?"

Naomi looked around.

"The terrain changed."

Nobody spoke.

She continued.

"When we escaped the road, we moved northwest."

She pointed behind them.

"The slope should’ve continued downward."

Then she pointed ahead.

"It doesn’t."

Aubrey’s stomach sank.

They hadn’t noticed.

Because they were running.

Because they were scared.

Because every instinct told them to put distance between themselves and the infected.

But the infected hadn’t been chasing them.

They had been guiding them.

Hale looked back into the trees.

"They pushed us away from the road."

Cherie frowned.

"Why?"

Nobody answered.

Because there were too many possible answers.

And none of them were good.

Terri hugged herself.

"I don’t like this."

Cherie glanced at her.

"Nobody does."

"No, I mean..."

Terri looked toward the woods.

"They’re not trying to eat us."

That sentence made everyone uncomfortable.

Because it was true.

Aubrey tightened her grip around her knife.

"Then what are they trying to do?"

A branch snapped.

Everyone froze.

Not because they were surprised.

Because they had gotten used to expecting something.

But nothing came.

A few seconds passed.

Then another sound.

Crunch.

Footsteps.

Ahead.

Not behind.

Naomi immediately raised her rifle.

"Movement."

The group prepared.

Weapons lifted.

Bodies tensed.

But nobody attacked.

Because standing between the trees...

Was an infected.

It wasn’t running.

It wasn’t charging.

It was just standing there.

Watching them.

Its head tilted slightly.

Almost curious.

Aubrey’s finger tightened around her knife.

"Is it..."

She couldn’t finish the sentence.

Hale understood.

"No."

His voice was quiet.

"It’s not attacking."

The infected stared at them for another moment.

Then slowly stepped backward.

Disappearing into the trees.

Nobody moved.

Then Terri whispered:

"...Did it just leave?"

Hale didn’t answer.

Because he knew.

It hadn’t left.

It had shown them something.

Aubrey felt it before she saw it.

That horrible feeling.

That feeling that something was waiting for them.

She looked forward.

And for the first time...

She noticed the trees.

They weren’t random.

The forest ahead was opening.

Not naturally.

The trees had become thinner.

The snow beneath them looked different.

Packed down.

Disturbed.

Naomi walked forward slowly.

Everyone followed.

The clearing appeared gradually.

And the moment Aubrey saw what was inside...

She stopped.

Nobody spoke.

The ground wasn’t snow anymore.

Not completely.

It had been walked over so many times that the snow had turned into a layer of frozen dirt and ice.

Footprints covered everything.

Thousands.

Not just infected.

People.

Human footprints.

Small ones.

Large ones.

Bare feet.

Boots.

Dragging marks.

Hale moved forward carefully.

His eyes scanned.

The remains of old camps surrounded the clearing.

Collapsed tents.

Burned-out fire pits.

Rusting cans.

Broken tools.

A child’s backpack half buried in the snow.

Terri saw it.

Her expression changed immediately.

She looked away.

Aubrey didn’t blame her.

She didn’t want to look either.

Because this wasn’t a battlefield.

It wasn’t a place where people fought and lost.

It was something worse.

A place where people had stayed.

A place where they had believed they were safe.

And then...

Something happened.

Cherie stepped closer to one of the fire pits.

She crouched.

Touched the ashes.

Her face hardened.

"Some of these are fresh."

Hale looked at her.

"How fresh?"

She looked toward the surrounding woods.

"Recent."

The answer sat heavily.

Aubrey slowly turned.

The forest behind them.

The forest they had come from.

Nothing.

No movement.

No laughter.

Then—

A sound.

Not behind them.

Around them.

A single footstep.

Then another.

Everyone turned.

The infected were emerging.

Slowly.

Not rushing.

Not screaming.

Just walking out from between the trees.

One.

Then another.

Then dozens.

Then hundreds.

They surrounded the clearing.

But they didn’t enter.

They stayed at the edge.

Watching.

Waiting.

Terri’s breathing became uneven.

"They’re..."

She swallowed.

"They’re scared of the clearing."

Hale stared.

"No."

Everyone looked at him.

His eyes remained locked on the infected.

"They’re respecting it."

Nobody liked that answer.

The line of infected parted.

Something enormous stepped through.

The fat infected.

The same one from the road.

The same one that had thrown bodies like toys.

The same one that had watched them run.

It dragged the stop sign behind it.

The metal scraped against the frozen ground.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

It reached the edge of the clearing.

And stopped.

Its pink eyes moved across the group.

Studying.

Remembering.

Then it smiled.

Not a hungry smile.

Not a mindless one.

A knowing one.

Aubrey felt her stomach twist.

Because somehow...

Somehow she knew.

This thing had not been chasing them.

It had been bringing them here.

The infected raised one massive hand.

A finger extended.

Pointing.

Nobody moved.

Nobody breathed.

Aubrey followed the direction.

Toward the center of the clearing.

At first...

She saw nothing.

Then the snow shifted.

A small movement.

Something beneath it.

Something buried.

Hale immediately raised his weapon.

Naomi stepped forward.

Cherie grabbed Terri’s shoulder.

Nobody knew what they were looking at.

Nobody knew if it was a person.

Or something worse.

The fat infected only watched.

Smiling.

Like it had been waiting for them to find it.

And as the thing beneath the snow moved again...

Aubrey realized the truth.

They hadn’t escaped the hunt.

They had reached the destination.