Page 62 of What Remains

He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't have to.

Josie gave him a small, grateful smile. "Thank you."

He looked away, gesturing toward the rest of the station. "Come on. We're shopping.”

Outside, Jay and Cara had already started working through the maintenance garage, and it didn't take long before Cara's voice rang out across the bay.

"There!" She held something overhead in triumph. "A hose!"

Jay looked up and grinned. Unlike the cheap plastic length they'd abandoned yesterday, this one was heavy-duty, fuel-rated rubber, nearly twenty feet long. He coiled it, treating it with more respect than a hose probably deserved. "Much better."

A few minutes later, Seth discovered two clean five-gallon gas cans tucked beneath a workbench beside the snowblower. He shook one and found it empty, but that hardly diminished the victory. Replacing what they'd lost meant one less thing to worry about—one more chance to keep moving. He quickly siphoned the gas from the ambulance.

The kitchen yielded even more. Cara opened a cabinet and let out a laugh of genuine delight.

"I found it. A reason to live."

Jay looked over, his expression skeptical until he saw the can in her hand. "...Coffee?"

"Three of them."

He snatched one before she could pull it back. “Woman you just made my year!”

Seth chuckled from the doorway. "I haven't seen you that happy since we found the second generator.”

"This is better than power," Jay said, pressing the can to his forehead like a holy relic.

"Apparently," Seth said.

The staff lounge proved equally worthwhile. Months-old vending machine snacks had survived surprisingly well—granola bars, pretzels, potato chips, crackers, peanut butter packets—enough quick calories to stretch their supplies another few days.

Layla stared at the bag of cheese puffs for a moment before taking it carefully, as if Cara might change her mind.

Cara smiled. "Go on, they're all yours."

Layla quickly snatched the bag her eyes lighting up.

Everyone laughed—even Seth. The sound was quiet and brief, but real, echoing strangely through the empty fire station before disappearing back into the silence that had claimed the building for so long.

By midmorning, nothing remained worth taking. The sleeping gear had been packed, the burn barrel emptied, every cabinet checked twice over. Jay made one final walk through the station, his footsteps the only sound in the stillness.

"Clear."

Seth nodded. "Let's move."

Together, the two men grabbed the heavy chain mechanisms hanging from the garage doors, and metal groaned against metal as months’s rust protested the disturbance.

"Ready?" Jay asked.

"On three," Seth said. "One... two... three."

Both men heaved, and the enormous doors crept upward with a deafening metallic shriek before finally rolling into place. Brilliant sunlight flooded the apparatus bay, and everyone instinctively shielded their eyes against it.

The world outside had transformed. Fresh snow blanketed everything—every rooftop, every abandoned vehicle, every broken fence. For a moment, Josie just took it in: the clean lines, the unbroken white, the profound stillness. It looked peaceful. It looked like the kind of place you could bring your kids back to.

Almost.

The engines rumbled to life. Jay climbed into the lead SUV while Cara unfolded the map across her lap, and Seth slid behind the wheel of Beast as Josie buckled Layla into her car seat.