Clear Water, Hidden Danger

Chapter 23 – The Industrial Route

We packed like men who understood the math of scarcity.
Wolf took plant watch. Stacks, Lin, Dave, Alan, Trey, and Jacob split across the generators and perimeter. No one left the gate without a plan and a head count.

Neal moved through the gear with that clipped efficiency that erased hesitation—two jerry cans under the flatbed, two 55-liter drums strapped to the rack, siphon pump, bolt cutters, pry bar, multimeter, med pouches checked twice. Cruz counted bandages like a prayer. Burks tightened straps until his fingers smelled of oil. Hawk kept his rifle light, safety off, eyes ahead.

“Weapons at ready,” Neal said, voice calm as code. “Semi only. Conserve rounds. Full auto if we break contact.”

Her gaze passed over Burks and Hawk—one heartbeat each. They froze, nodded. The lesson landed.

We slipped out the south gate before the heat hit.

The industrial corridor opened like a throat of rust and glass. Freight containers towered in rows, turning the street into a canyon of metal.

A Bellevue Sanitation rig lay half off the road—faded blue paint, gloves still on the dash. Nobody checked for bodies.

MetroSaver waited ahead—ordinary and wrong in its quiet. Pumps stood empty under a torn awning. No movement.

Alan tested the fuel with a stick, sniffed once, nodded. Clean.

Burks rigged the siphon, Cruz filled the drums, Hawk scanned the roofs.

Twelve minutes later, we had diesel and nothing dead for the trouble.

No marks left behind—just the smell of fuel and a faint echo of our boots.

Kwik Spot came next. A small generator hummed behind the shed, chained and stubborn.

Burks cut the lock; the machine was ours in under ten minutes. Inside, shelves were bare, the air thick with old sugar and dust.

We took batteries, a few non-perishables that were still on shelves—small victories.

Then Neighborhood Western Grocery rose ahead across Towne Center Road.

That’s where calm ended.

The lot told the story of panic—half-burned trash, overturned carts, a child’s shoe buried in gravel.

It was supposed to be dead.

It wasn’t.

Movement flickered between cars—fast, deliberate, wrong.

“Contact,” Hawk hissed.

There were about ten of them pouring out of the shattered entrance. And 5 scurrying between parked vehicles in the lot.

Not Shakers.

Zerkers. Evolved, violent, coordinated.

Their charge sounded like metal screaming.

“Hawk, roof,” Neal said.

He was already climbing before she finished the word.

“Cover right,” I told Burks.

He nodded once.

We fired on semi-automatic—controlled, measured. Each shot bought one second of space.

Bodies folded but the line didn’t thin. They came like water against steel—relentless.

The air smelled of burned sugar and ozone.

Burks caught one wrong. The Zerker lunged from between carts; Burks swung his rifle butt, cracked its skull, but teeth caught his arm on the rebound.

Blood. Bright.

Cruz was there before the next heartbeat, tourniquet tight, eyes sharp and scared at once.

Hawk’s fire from above was surgical—three kills in ten seconds.
Every shot steadied the team. The panic thinned; rhythm took over.

When the last one dropped, the lot fell into heavy silence.
Fifteen bodies. No motion.

The stink of cordite and diesel hung thick enough to taste.

Cruz checked Burks again. “He’s stable,” she said. “No fever. Yet.”

He gave a weak grin. “Still uglier, though.”

It broke the tension just enough to breathe.

We stripped the store for what mattered—water, formula, two hidden med packs. The rest was wreckage and echoes.

The NorthStar Logistics Clinic sat about 150 yards down—gated, still, stamped with half-peeled Air Force decals. We stopped, watched. Nothing moved but air.

We drove the last few yards on semi-auto, engines whispering, the road bending toward whatever waited next.