The forest no longer felt alive.
Now it watched him.
Every rustle in the undergrowth, every shift of wind through the pines made Jake's nerves bristle. He didn't trust it—not the birds starting to creep back, not the branches twitching in the breeze. Out here, anything could be a threat.
He had water.
A few scraps of rabbit meat left.
The stream was darker now. Murky. He'd been sick once after drinking it — cramps and dry heaves by the fire — but thirst was worse than fear.
That morning, he knelt by the bank, scooped up muddy water with both hands. It stank of dead leaves and silt. He drank anyway, ignoring the grit scraping his throat.
His reflection stared back from the ripples — gaunt, pale, eyes like hollows in his skull.
A thing, not a boy.
He spat in the water and moved on.
The quiet was different today. Less dead, more waiting. The wind carried a faint sour smell. Smoke. Thin, but there.
Jake's stomach twisted. Fire meant people. And people… people were worse than walkers.
But people meant food, too.
He hesitated, hunger clawing at his gut. His last rabbit was bone and ash. His traps had come up empty for two days. Every instinct told him to stay clear.
He didn't.
---
The smoke came from a hollow behind a line of pines. Jake crept forward, careful to keep low behind the mossy trunks.
There were two of them.
A man and a woman, crouched by a dying fire. No tent. Just a sagging sheet of plastic stretched over a log. Both looked worse than he did — skin clinging to their faces, clothes damp and threadbare. The woman clutched something to her chest. A rusted can of beans. Half open.
The man rocked on his heels beside her, hands twitching at his sides.
Jake's stomach cramped at the sight of the food. Even half-rotten beans sounded like a feast.
The woman murmured something, lifting the can.
The man's face twisted.
Not with anger.
With something desperate. Feral.
He grabbed a heavy pipe wrench from the ground.
The kind you'd use to break open old plumbing.
Without a word, without a warning, he swung it.
A single, brutal crack.
The sound of bone and wet earth.
The woman fell sideways, the can spilling into the dirt.
Jake flinched, his hand tightening on the bow.
The man dropped the wrench, his whole body shaking. He didn't look like a killer. He looked like someone at the end of a rope.
Like him.
Jake stayed hidden. His pulse rattled in his ears.
The man knelt by the body, snatched the can up and scraped what he could into his mouth with shaking fingers. Barely chewing. Gulping it down like an animal.
Jake's throat tightened. He was lightheaded. He could almost taste the beans. And the metallic stink of blood made the air thick.
He thought about his dad.
How he promised no one would ever hurt him.
How he swore there were still good people left.
Liars.
The man by the fire coughed, gagging on the cold beans, then slumped beside the body like he'd spent every drop of strength he had.
Jake didn't wait for more.
He turned and slipped away, careful not to snap a twig, not to breathe too loud.
---
By the time he reached his hollow, his hands ached from clutching the bow so tight.
He crouched by the pitiful fire and forced down a mouthful of gritty water. It tasted worse now. His stomach rolled but kept it down.
He'd never forget that sound.
The crack of the wrench.
The way the man's eyes looked afterward — empty, like a light had gone out.
Not anger.
Not cruelty.
Just survival.
Jake stared at the cold embers in his firepit.
That's what hunger did.
It wasn't the dead you had to watch for.
It was the living.
He checked his bowstring, tested the edge of his dull knife. Tomorrow he'd have to hunt again. Move camp. This part of the woods was dead.
Too many people.
Too many ghosts.
He curled beneath his tattered blanket, stomach growling, and told himself again what no one else would.
"It's me or them."
Out here, there was no one to look after you.
No one to make him better.
Just Jake.
And whatever the forest let him keep.