He woke because the noise had stopped.
For a while he remained inside the sleeping bag, eyes open, watching his breath gather beneath the sagging roof.
Something should have been moving outside. Something always moved outside.
He reached from beneath the blankets and closed one hand around the knife lying beside him. The steel was so cold it hurt his fingers.
He listened.
Nothing scratched at the walls. Nothing wandered through the broken glass surrounding the service station. The warning cans tied along the fence hung still.
He had imagined silence before.
It had never sounded like this.
The fire had gone out during the night, leaving a shallow bed of grey ash inside the little iron stove. Frost traced the windows and pushed through cracks in the plaster like pale roots.
He pulled the sleeping bag tighter around his shoulders.
There had been six of them outside when darkness fell. Perhaps seven.
One wore the remains of an orange road-worker’s jacket. Another had circled the building for most of the afternoon, dragging one foot behind it. There had been a woman too, although so little remained of her face that he could not be certain.
They had followed him from the highway towards Melrose. He had watched from behind the shelves as they pressed against the fence, drawn by the heat, the smoke or simply the knowledge that something living remained inside.
They never tired or lost interest. Once they found you, they stayed.
He had expected to wake to the sound of them throwing themselves against the gate.
Instead, there was nothing.
He waited until the cold forced him to move. His boots had hardened overnight, and he worked his feet into them before pulling on his coat and wrapping a faded scarf twice around his face. It smelled of smoke, sweat and damp wool.
The rifle lay beneath the window. He lifted it and checked the chamber.
One round.
Three more in the pocket sewn inside his coat.
Four bullets would not stop seven infected. They might give him enough room to run.
A sheet of plywood covered most of the window. He eased one corner aside and looked through the narrow gap.
Morning had flattened the world into shades of white and grey. The highway disappeared beneath windblown snow, and beyond it stood a line of skeletal gums, their pale trunks fading into low cloud. Two abandoned cars sat near the rusted fuel pumps with their doors open and windows dark.
Nothing stood at the fence.
He searched the yard slowly, moving his eye from the gate to the pumps and then towards the rear of the building.
No orange jacket pressed against the wire. No ruined woman wandered beneath the awning. Nothing dragged a useless leg through the snow.
Something lay near the fence.
At first he thought one of them had fallen. Then he saw the empty sleeve moving in the wind.
The orange jacket had collapsed into the churned snow. Work trousers lay beneath it, twisted around a pair of heavy boots. Nearby, more clothes marked the places where the infected had stood: a stained coat, a torn dress, jeans still held by a belt.
There were no bodies inside them.
He watched until the trembling in his hands began to move the rifle barrel, then remained at the window a little longer.
Nothing came.
He lowered the plywood and crossed to the stove. There was enough wood for one more fire, perhaps two if he burned the broken chair. He still had half a tin of peaches, a fistful of oats and a strip of dried meat that had begun to smell wrong.
The rain tank held water, but ice had formed inside the tap.
He could remain another day.
Perhaps two.
After that, the cold would make the decision for him.
He returned to the window.
The infected had never disappeared before. They wandered, followed sound, stumbled into gullies or froze against trees. Storms buried them and sometimes, when the snow softened, they rose again.
They did not leave their clothes behind.