18. Slow Progress

Staying Human

The far side of the river still smelled like gunpowder and wet pine. We cleared the last bodies off the bridge, checked the vehicles, and rolled north with more caution than speed. Hazelhurst was the next mark on the map. Getting there in one piece mattered more than getting there fast.

Grok kept the drone high and talking. “Recommend remaining on secondary routes west of US 441. GA 268 offers lower built-up density and fewer choke points.”

I took the advice. We left the bigger road behind and crept onto 268. The pavement was cracked and patched with old tar. Tall pines closed in on both sides. After the rain the air hung thick and warm, full of resin, wet earth, and the faint rot that never quite left the world now. Abandoned mailboxes leaned in the ditches. A burned-out pickup sat half in the trees like it had tried to hide and failed.

We kept it to fifteen, maybe twenty miles an hour. Fast enough to keep moving. Slow enough to see trouble before it saw us. Every curve got a drone pass first. Every little bridge got a long look. Jack’s old habits and Grok’s new eyes worked the same problem from two directions.

“Clear for the next half mile,” Grok said more than once. Sometimes he added, “Movement in the tree line, two hundred meters east, not closing.” Those were the ones that made everyone sit a little straighter.

Mikey stayed quiet in the back of the 4Runner for a while, still coming down from the fight. Then he started asking Grok about the drone feed, about how the camera tracked motion, about why the Walkers had waited on the bridge instead of rushing the road. Grok answered patient and precise. Raych listened and let them talk. It kept the kid’s mind working instead of looping on the shotgun blast.

The miles crawled. Heat shimmered off the hood. Coffee in the cup holders went from hot to lukewarm to forgotten. Tom checked in on the radio every so often, voice low and even.

“Still with you. F-150’s running fine.”

“Copy,” I said. “We keep it slow.”

By late afternoon the fuel gauge and the fatigue both said the same thing. The team needed a break. Fighting at the river and then creeping through woods all day had worn the edge off everyone.

Grok flagged a cluster of buildings ahead near the intersection of Ussery Road and GA 268, about five miles short of Hazelhurst. Farmhouse, barn, and a metal shop set back from the road with enough open ground to lager the vehicles and still have sight lines.

I stopped well short and had Grok send the drone over first. No movement in the yard. No heat signatures that looked human or Walker. Doors hung open on the shop. The farmhouse windows were dark. We approached on foot in a tight stack, cleared the house, the barn, and the shop the old way. Empty. Dust, a few scattered tools, the sour smell of a refrigerator that had died months ago. Good enough.

Tom and I set the standard camp. Vehicles angled for a quick roll-out. Go boxes where we could reach them. Coleman stove on a folding table in the lee of the shop. I broke out the De Buyer and got rice and canned chicken going with a solid shake of Kinder’s. Raych handled the percolator. The rich smell of coffee and hot food pushed back against the damp farmyard and the long day.

We ate sitting on tailgates and an old bench pulled out of the shop. Nobody talked much at first. The river fight still sat in the muscles. The slow road sat in the nerves. Hazelhurst waited five miles up the pavement, and we all hoped it still had something worth foraging.

After the plates were scraped and the coffee was poured again, the talk loosened. Mikey asked what Hazelhurst used to be like. Tom remembered a hardware store and a diner. Sarah remembered driving through once on the way to the coast. Raych talked about ordinary Saturdays before any of this, grocery lists and weekend plans that felt like they belonged to another planet.

Then the conversation drifted, the way it does when the fire is low and the dark is close. Back before The Walkers. Back before The Cough turned neighbors into something else. Back when the biggest worry on a Georgia side road was a speed trap or a flat tire.

I let them talk. I watched the tree line and listened. The farmhouse sat quiet behind us. The barn loomed dark. Grok’s rig hummed soft in the 4Runner. Five miles short of Hazelhurst, the family had walls, hot food, and one more night of being human.

Tomorrow we would see what the town still held.

Tonight the stories of the time before were waiting to come out.