The trip to Cape Grindstone was dull. Going by car had always been boring, but going on foot was a pain. They had made the trip hundreds of times before, as the town was the central place of the islands; most of the stores were there, including the only mall around, even if it was small compared to larger-surface stores. Matt tried to engage in conversation. Karen tried her best to answer, but she wasn’t really good at small talk. For the amount of questions he asked, she found them empty of any purpose – stuff about her past, what it was like growing up in foster families, what she had hoped to get a degree in before the fall of their civilization…

Those things were meaningless now. She didn’t mind that he wanted to know about her, but she couldn’t bring herself to push the conversation further. She didn’t ask any questions back, which made him poke a bit of fun at her and mock her current lack of interest in being social. She answered back by jokingly saying that she couldn’t place a word because he talked too much.

The conversation died down long before they reached their destination. The rest of the journey was spent walking silently, listening to the sharp wind of autumn, feeling its bite on their skin through their clothes. They still had some time left before sunset, yet Karen was uneasy, looking at the clouds that Matt had mentioned earlier. As they progressed through the day, he became anxious, his head on a swivel, alert.

“Let’s be careful. Something feels… off,” he said.

He was right, she thought. She shared her observation with Matt: even though they had reached the mall, where they expected to find either live people or corpses, everywhere they looked was devoid of either life or death. There were cars here and there, some parked properly, some with broken windows or doors open. There was extensive damage to the vehicles. It was like some sort of bomb suddenly went off, causing material damage, but causing everyone to suddenly vanish in the blink of an eye.

Matt glanced inside some of the cars, stopping in front of one, his interest piqued. There were still usable supplies in it; the previous owner obviously had just finished getting their groceries. There was some rotten produce that let out a sickening smell, but there was also some canned food, some bottled water and, fortunately for Karen, some clothes that were almost the right size. These goods, once mundane in their nature, were now a gift from the heavens. He began packing all he could in their backpack. On a hunch, Karen sat at the driver’s wheel. The key was still in the ignition. She turned it, and the car started up.

They looked at each other. Karen smiled, happy that they had found a way to move around quicker. Her smile faded when she saw Matt’s grave expression.

“Turn it off,” he said dryly. She did. She also saw that he had stopped packing the goods.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“It’s too good to be true. Why hasn’t anybody looted all this already? Why is it so quiet? Why aren’t we seeing corpses or any Corrupted?”

“You think it’s an ambush? That people would attack us?”

“Not necessarily,” he said before pointing at the horizon.

He was trying to bring her to pay attention to the nearby houses. Normally bright and colorful, all of them were now in shades of pale brown or gray.

“And these clouds…” he said. “Maybe it’s nothing but I have a bad fee--.” He stopped mid-sentence. They had heard something shuffling about, like a sharp gust of wind, a whip flailing in the air.

“Let’s go!” she yelled, closing the door. Matt didn’t argue and buckled in. She started the car and drove as quickly as she could. However, their getaway was abruptly cut short when the car went haywire, noises of electrical wires sparking and micro-explosions as the engine backfired, followed by a complete stop of the vehicle.

The dashboard went dark. She hit it with her hand, more out of frustration than thinking it would fix it. “What now?” she asked herself out loud. Matt answered with a sound somewhere between a gasp and a scream. She quickly turned around to understand what the problem was but couldn’t find any threat. “What’s wrong?” she nervously exclaimed. He kept shifting around for almost half a minute before finally giving an answer. He had seen someone there, he said. Someone transparent.

“What, like a ghost?” Karen asked. Matt didn’t have an answer. “Come on, Matt! Give me som--“ She was interrupted as something grabbed her by the hair and slammed her head against the seat of the car. Whatever did that had tremendous strength, perhaps even more than she did. She tried to talk, then to scream, but her voice was muffled by the seat as her face was held firm, preventing her breathing. She wailed her arms around, then a second hand grabbed her by the neck. She felt her bones crack, her muscles tear up.