- Ruins, debris, and the plethora of ankle biters make traveling pretty hard. You might find yourself at a dead end and reach a dead end. (Get it?)

  - Make your own map. Remember landmarks.

  ---

  I didn’t expect Cleveland to smell like piss and diesel.

  We crouched in the shadow of a burned-out minivan, the skyline looming like jagged teeth in the distance. Alex was breathing fast, and I couldn’t blame her. Gracetown and Maplethorn were kiddie pools. This place? This was the ocean. A filthy, churning, undead-infested ocean.

  The buildings here weren’t just tall. They were towers of death—gutted, blackened, their glass eyes smashed out and staring. Every alley hissed. Every echo made you second guess your next step.

  I handed Alex a small notebook and a pen. “Start marking things down. We’re not going to remember every street. Start simple—big buildings, graffiti, busted signs, weird stuff.”

  She looked up at me, blinking like she needed permission to breathe. Then nodded. “On it.”

  We moved in a zigzag pattern. No straight lines. That’s suicide in the city. The density here meant the infected were stacked like cordwood, waiting for any excuse to chase. We stuck close to the edges—fire escapes, dumpsters, backdoors with barely-there hinges.

  Alex was surprisingly quiet. No panic mutters, no nervous humming. Just watching. Drawing. Absorbing.

  I caught a glimpse of what she was sketching—crudely drawn intersections with notes like "Gas station - looted," or "Car pileup blocks entire block." It wasn’t pretty. But it was damn useful.

  “Good,” I told her. “Make it a habit. Map’s no good if you don’t update it.”

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  She nodded again, and then, just faintly, smiled.

  We turned a corner. That’s when I saw it.

  A pack of them—zombies. Maybe twenty. All crowding around a broken-down bus, moaning in low, guttural groans that echoed like thunder between the buildings. But what got me wasn’t the crowd—it was the centerpiece.

  A massive corpse, easily three times the size of a normal one. Arms thick as telephone poles. Skin stretched tight and gray across a grotesque frame. And unlike the others, this one wasn’t shambling. It stood still. Watching.

  I pressed my back to the wall and yanked Alex with me.

  She didn’t make a sound, just held her breath and scribbled in the margins: Big one. Doesn’t move. Watching. Smart?

  My stomach twisted. “I’ve seen big ones before,” I whispered. “Not like that. That thing’s different. It’s not just big. It’s in charge.”

  We watched for a few minutes. I counted at least two other "leaders" in the crowd—zombies that moved with something like purpose. Not quite human. But... not brain-dead, either.

  “Okay,” I breathed. “We don’t tangle with that. Not yet.”

  We doubled back, weaving through a side alley that smelled like old grease and sewage. It took us thirty minutes to loop around to a new street, and by the time we got there, the sun was dipping behind the skyline, casting everything in that dirty orange glow that makes shadows stretch twice as long.

  That’s when we saw it.

  Parked halfway up the block, half-covered in soot and road grime, was the dark green Jeep.

  Her Jeep.

  I knew it from the scratch marks and the license plate.

  I stopped walking. My legs didn’t want to go forward anymore.

  Alex tilted her head. “That yours?”

  I shook mine. “Someone I knew.”

  The memories slammed into me. Her eyes when she drove away. The silence. The horde. That feeling of betrayal that burned worse than any bite could.

  I couldn't quite remember how long since she left. I stopped counting.

  The Jeep was empty. No blood. No sign of a struggle.

  But she had been here.

  I stepped closer, brushing the dust from the hood. It was cold. Probably hadn’t been driven in a while. That was both comforting and terrifying.

  Alex didn’t say anything, but I saw her scribbling something in her map book. Then, without looking at me, she mumbled, “Maybe the owner's still around.”

  “Maybe,” I said. I didn’t believe it. Or maybe I did. And maybe that was the problem.

  We found a small storefront nearby—an old bookstore, boarded up but not broken into. It wasn’t perfect, but it would work for the night. We’d reinforce the door with some shelves and rest our feet. Eat. Breathe.

  I pulled out my own notebook—my tip book—and added a line.

  Cities are complicated. Don’t expect to learn them overnight. But maps? Maps keep you sane. Landmarks keep you alive.

  And underneath that, in smaller handwriting: Saw her car. Be ready.