All Chapters of Dead Weight: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

98 Chapters

Chapter 1 - End of the world. Also, Tuesday

The world should end on a Monday.There’s something honest about that. Brutal, yes, but clean. A Monday already has the emotional texture of damp socks and unpaid bills, so adding zombies feels less like a cosmic betrayal and more like management escalating a complaint.Unfortunately, the world chooses Thursday at 6:17 p.m., while Maya Rodriguez is standing barefoot in her kitchen, trying to decide whether expired sour cream is a negotiable concept.“It smells fine,” Dex says from behind her.Maya looks at him over her shoulder.Dex Hartley is twenty-nine, handsome in the irritating way of men who don’t know where the plunger lives, and currently holding a spoon like he’s about to conduct a scientific trial on dairy products from the back of the fridge.“That’s not a defence,” Maya says. “That’s what people say before poisoning guests.”“We don’t have guests.”“Exactly. It would just be us. A murder-suicide via nachos.”On the television, a news anchor says, “—reports of violent incid

Chapter 2 - Survival is a team sport. Dex is not a team player.

People like to think survival is about bravery.Big choices. Hero moments. Running toward danger with a jaw set like a movie poster.In Maya's experience, survival is mostly about not doing stupid things in quick succession, which sounds easier than it is when the world has decided to become aggressively stupid all at once."Left," she says."Why left?" Dex pants behind her."Because right has screaming.""That could be normal screaming.""If you can confidently classify that as normal screaming, I would love to hear your criteria."Dex opens his mouth. Closes it. "…left is good," he says.They take the left.The street is narrower here, lined with shuttered shops and the kind of hopeful small businesses that usually sell handmade candles and financial despair. Everything is half-closed, half-broken, like the city couldn't decide whether to panic or pretend.Maya keeps moving. Her lungs burn. Her hands are still shaking from the door. Every sound feels aimed directly at her spine."Si

Chapter 3 - Day three. The math is getting harder.

By day three, Maya has developed a close personal relationship with the inventory spreadsheet in her head.It has columns. It has projections. It has the grim emotional energy of a wedding seating plan prepared during a hostage situation.“Breakfast,” she says, placing two protein bars on the folding table like she’s serving tiny beige steaks.Dex looks at his. “Half?”“Half.”“It’s breakfast.”“It’s apocalypse breakfast. Very exclusive. Terrible reviews.”He picks it up, frowning. “I’m hungry.”Maya almost laughs. Not because it’s funny. Because if she doesn’t laugh, something else might come out, and it has teeth.They’re both hungry. Hunger has become the third person in the room, sitting between them with its elbows on the table, breathing hot and sour into every conversation. Maya feels it behind her ribs. In her hands. In the new sharpness of her thoughts.Dex eats his half in two bites. Then reaches for the wrapper, licks a smear of chocolate from the inside, and looks away like

Chapter 4 – Lies he tells. Excuses she makes.

By the end of the first week, time stops behaving like time.It stretches in the afternoons, thin and brittle, every hour a separate decision. Then it snaps forward without warning and suddenly it's night again and Maya is lying next to Dex, counting his breaths like they might run out.Today is an afternoon day.Dex leaves just after midday."I'll be quick," he says, already halfway down the ladder, already not looking at her properly."Where?""Just around. Found a place yesterday — might have supplies."Maybe is doing a lot of work there. Maya watches it strain under the weight.She could ask more. She could say, Take me with you. She could say, Show me where. She could say, Stop disappearing like the walls aren't already thin enough."Don't push it," she says instead.Dex smiles, quick and easy, like this is normal. "I won't."He leaves. The door closes. The warehouse inhales his absence and settles into it like a body finding a familiar bruise.Emotional truth: she misses him the

Chapter 5 - The supplies. The math.

By day nine, Maya stops calling it a feeling.Feelings are soft. Debatable. Open to interpretation.This is math.She spreads everything out on the floor. Not dramatically. Not in a panic. Just… systematically. Like laying out tools before a job you already understand but would prefer not to.Food first.Six tins become five when she counts them properly, because one of them is actually empty and placed back on the shelf like optimism in a suit.Protein bars: four and a half.Crackers: gone.Peanut butter: a scraped-out husk of former potential.Maya nods.She writes it down in her head. Then she moves to water. Still holding. Good.Fuel next.Two canisters should be two canisters. One is full. The other is lighter than it has any right to be.Maya lifts it. Shakes it gently. Listens.Half.Not used. Not by her. She knows what she’s used. She tracks that instinctively now, like breathing with numbers attached.Half missing.She sets it down carefully.Medicine.The plastic box clicks o

Chapter 6 - The other woman.

Following someone you love should feel romantic.Soft footsteps. Wind in the trees. The quiet certainty that you are moving toward something.Maya follows Dex across three streets and an empty car park and discovers that what it actually feels like is surveillance with better lighting and worse outcomes.He doesn’t notice her.That part is almost impressive.He moves the way he always does now when he leaves now: purposeful without being careful, like the world is dangerous in theory but not in a way that applies directly to him.Maya keeps her distance.Not hiding, exactly. Just… placing herself where she isn’t expected. Behind a burnt-out sedan. Inside the shadow of a collapsed awning. Pausing when he pauses, moving when he moves.She is good at this.That lands quietly. Not pride. Not relief. Just a fact she adds to the growing list of things she did not know about herself before everything broke.He heads toward Riley’s. Of course he does.The sign is half-hanging now, one side tor

Chapter 7 - The night he left

People always think the worst part is the moment something breaks.The shouting. The betrayal. The door slamming.They don’t account for the quiet.Maya wakes up because it’s too quiet. Not the outside quiet. That’s been wrong for days, a thin, stretched silence over something that used to be loud.This is different.This is the absence of a person.She knows it before she opens her eyes.Emotional truth: something is wrong.There’s no deflection.There isn’t time.She sits up.“Dex?”Nothing.The mezzanine is empty on his side. Blanket pushed back. No shape where he should be. No slow, even breathing she’s been counting like it meant something.Maya swings her legs over the edge. Climbs down.“Dex?”She says it louder this time. The warehouse gives it back to her, flat and uninterested.She already knows.Her body knows.That quiet, precise part of her that’s been doing the math for days has finally stopped pretending there might be another answer.Still, she checks. Of course she che

Chapter 8 - Alone

She moves through the warehouse in loops.Check doors. Check windows. Check roof. Check the street. Back down. Repeat. Movement keeps the edges from closing in. Sitting still makes the silence louder, and the silence has opinions now.On the second day alone, she sees the first horde.Not a swarm. Not a wave. A gathering. They come down the street in that slow inevitable way, drawn by something: sound, movement, the vague memory of life that still clings to places like this. Maya is on the roof when she spots them. Ten. Fifteen. More behind.She crouches low. Watches. Counts. Always counts.They're not heading for her. Not directly. Just passing. Except passing doesn't mean leaving. Passing means maybe noticing.One of them turns. Head lifting. Nose working.Maya freezes.Emotional truth: if they come here, she cannot fight them.No deflection. Just math.She moves slowly back to the roof access. Down the ladder. Inside. Reinforces the barricade even though she knows it won't hold if t

Chapter 9 - Running out of options

Running should feel like escape.Forward motion. Distance. The idea that if you just keep going, the thing behind you becomes less.Maya runs and learns that distance is a theory.Reality is corners. Reality is breath. Reality is how long your legs keep agreeing to the contract while you gave it very little fuel to go on.Left.She takes it without thinking. Narrow alley. Good. Fewer angles. Bad. Fewer exits.Trade-offs. Always trade-offs.“Love a corridor,” she pants. “Very on brand.”Something clips her shoulder.Not a hand. A wall.Good. Still oriented. Better than the alternative.Behind her—noise.Closer now. Not a hum. Not background.Individual.Feet dragging. Bodies colliding. The sound of too many things moving with the same bad intention.Maya doesn’t look back.Looking back costs time. Time is currency and she is broke.Right.She cuts through a gap between bins. Metal scrapes her arm. Doesn’t matter.Blood?Doesn’t matter. Later problem. If there is a later.Front.Door.Lo

Chapter 10 - She dies. (Rudely)

There’s a moment, right before it happens, where the world sharpens.Not slows.Sharpens.Edges come into focus. Angles. Distances. The exact placement of everybody between her and the impossible idea of escape.Maya sees all of it.The gap that isn’t a gap. The hand already reaching for her throat. The second one angling for her arm. The third, slower, behind—Too many. Always too many.She moves anyway.Of course she does.Knife up. Down.Once.Twice.A face she doesn’t look at collapses. Another takes its place. They don’t hesitate. They don’t learn. They just… continue.Maya pivots. She drives forward instead of back. Shoulder into one body, shoving space where there wasn’t any.It almost works.Almost is a dangerous word.A hand catches her wrist. Another grabs her jacket.Weight.Pull.She twists. Breaks one grip. Not the other.“Come on,” she breathes, like she’s negotiating with something that doesn’t negotiate. “Work with me here.”A laugh escapes her. Short. Wrong.She drops

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