Ben watched her going over each car for a while before his curiosity got the better of him. “What’re you looking for?”
“Anything we can use if and when we run into more of those things,” she said, not taking her eyes off the interior of the car she was next to. “They’ve all been looted though I think.”
He checked his belt. The plastic bag filled with water bottles and food was still tied there, a reassuring weight on his good leg. “That’s reassuring in a way. It means people still pass through now and then, or did at one time at least.”
Something caught his eye then, and he jerked his head around before even realizing what it was he’d seen. A light?
He scanned up and down the rows of buildings along the road they were following down to the water. Where … There. The tiniest spark of a light, a red blip in the night. He pointed it out.
They moved closer. They’d covered about three quarters of the distance to the light when they were able to make out the source through the gloom. It was an old security camera that had been outfitted with a makeshift cover to conceal it, only now the cover was showing its age and falling apart.
A noise from behind them startled Claire; she covered her mouth and turned with a muffled gasp. A figure stumbled into the street some distance further up the road. As they watched, it turned their way.
Ben’s stomach turned to ice. Individually they weren’t a threat—but they had no weapons to use against it either, and they couldn’t see reliably. They couldn’t move much faster than it could in the dark either, for fear of injury and because of the injury he already had. He grabbed Claire’s arm and together they moved as quickly as they could away down the street.
They were just coming to a major intersection, about 4 or 5 away from the water when off to their left, more movement. More sound. And then to their right.
Ben swallowed, but dared not speak. They kept moving; Claire threw an arm around his shoulders and almost dragged him in their efforts to go faster.