The Outbreak Took Her Friend | Claire

The afternoon sun cut through the windshield as Maya's old Honda crawled along Interstate 85. Claire had her feet up on the dash, a sketchbook open in her lap, pencil moving in lazy circles around a half finished logo concept. Maya drummed her fingers on the steering wheel to something on the radio, some pop song Claire half-recognized.

"Okay, but what if you did the leaf in green instead of blue?" Maya glanced over, catching a glimpse of the page. "Like, actually green. For an eco brand."

"It's not an eco brand. It's a fintech startup."

"So? Green means money."

Claire snorted. "That's the most cynical thing you've ever said."

"I have depths." Maya grinned, eyes back on the road. "Hidden depths. Like a shallow pool that's somehow also deep."

"That makes zero sense."

"It makes perfect sense if you don't think about it."

Claire laughed, the sound easy and warm. She added a few more lines to the sketch, not really committed to it, just keeping her hands busy. The radio switched to a news break, something about a hospital incident downtown, but she tuned it out. Traffic had been getting thicker for the last ten minutes, and now they were barely moving at all.

Maya leaned forward, squinting past the line of brake lights stretching ahead of them. "What the hell? Accident?"

"Probably." Claire looked up from her sketchbook. Cars stretched out in both lanes, some people stepping out of their vehicles to stand on tiptoes, trying to see what was holding things up. A man two cars ahead was walking toward the shoulder, phone raised, probably recording. "Maybe we should check Waze."

"Already did. Nothing." Maya pulled out her own phone, tapped the screen a few times. "No reports. Weird." She chewed her lip, drumming her fingers faster now. "I'm gonna look."

"Maya–"

"Just gonna see what's up. Stay here."

Maya was already unbuckling, already pushing the door open. The warm air hit Claire through the gap, thick with exhaust and the distant sound of car horns. She watched her friend weave between the stopped vehicles, that familiar confident stride, ponytail swinging.

Claire set down her sketchbook. She pulled out her own phone. Three new rejection emails. She deleted them without reading.

A horn blared somewhere far ahead. Then another. Then a scream, short and sharp, swallowed by the general noise of the highway.

Maya was about fifteen cars ahead now, standing on her toes to peer over a pickup truck. She turned back toward her car, and her face had changed. Something was wrong. Her mouth was moving, shouting something Claire couldn't hear over the engine noise and the radio and the honking.

Then Claire saw them.

People. Running. Not the lazy jog of someone avoiding a minor road accident but the full sprint of prey animals. They poured between the cars from the front of the jam, some climbing over hoods, one woman scrambling through an open window. Behind them–

Behind them were others. Moving wrong. Too fast. Too jerky. One of them caught a man trying to run, dragged him down, and the sound that followed was not something Claire had ever heard a human throat make.

"Maya!" Claire was out of the car before she made the decision, feet hitting hot asphalt, sketchbook falling forgotten under the seat. "MAYA!"

Maya was running back. She was fast, always had been, but the thing behind her was faster. It had been a woman once. Business suit, heels abandoned, jaw hanging at an impossible angle. Eyes milky and wrong.

Maya was ten feet from the car when the thing caught her.

It grabbed her from behind, fingers hooking into her shoulders, and Maya screamed, a real scream, the kind that came from somewhere deep and primal. She twisted, fighting, and for one second her eyes found Claire's across the shrinking distance.

"RUN!"

The thing's teeth found her throat.

Claire's legs locked. Her brain locked. Everything locked. She watched the blood, so much blood, spraying in an arc that caught the sunlight, watched Maya's body jerk and spasm, watched her fall, watched the thing crouch over her and keep going.

More of them were coming. A dozen. Two dozen. Pouring between the cars from the direction of the crash or whatever it was, and they were fast, so fast, and they were not stopping.

A hand grabbed her arm.

Claire screamed, twisted, ready to fight, but it was just a man, some guy from one of the other cars, face pale and sweating.

"We have to go! NOW!"

He pulled her, and her legs finally moved, and she ran. Not toward the Honda. That was lost, Maya's body still visible between the cars, the thing still hunched over her and, oh god, oh god, oh god–

She ran. The man let go of her arm and sprinted ahead, and she followed blindly, weaving between cars, hearing the sounds behind her, the screams of other people who hadn't moved fast enough, the wet sounds she refused to think about, the crash of metal and glass as something heavy hit a windshield.

An SUV with the back door hanging open. Someone had abandoned it. Claire dove inside, pulled the door shut, and collapsed onto the floor of the backseat, pressing herself into the footwell. Her hands were shaking. Her whole body was shaking. She could hear her own breathing, loud and ragged, and she pressed her palm over her mouth to muffle it.

Outside, the sounds continued. Screaming. Crashing. That wet, horrible noise that she knew was teeth meeting flesh.

Maya.

Maya was dead. And she had watched it happen, she had run, and now she was hiding on the floor of some stranger's car.

Claire pressed her face into her knees and tried to make herself as small as possible. The car smelled like air freshener and old french fries. Through the gap in the seats, she could see the windshield, could see shapes moving past, fast and wrong.

A sob escaped her throat before she could stop it. She clamped both hands over her mouth, pressing hard enough to hurt, and squeezed her eyes shut against the tears.

.