Chapter 117: The Screamer [2]

The Jackson Township radio station stood before us in the pale pre-dawn light, a modest three-story brick building that had served the small community for decades before the outbreak changed everything. Unlike the towering broadcast facilities found in major cities, this was clearly a local operation—functional rather than impressive, with a single transmission tower rising from its flat roof and a small parking lot that could accommodate perhaps twenty vehicles.

The building’s architecture spoke to practical Pennsylvanian sensibilities: red brick construction with white-trimmed windows, a design that had weathered countless winters and summers without pretension. What had once been well-maintained landscaping around the entrance had grown wild during the months of abandonment, creating an overgrown tangle of bushes and weeds that provided excellent cover for our approach.

I pulled the motorcycle to a stop behind an overturned delivery truck about a hundred meters from the building’s main entrance, killing the engine and listening to the oppressive silence that seemed to emanate from the structure itself. Even the usual background sounds of a small community in the early morning—birds chirping, the distant hum of electrical equipment, the occasional bark of a dog—were conspicuously absent here.

“It looks so ordinary,” Rachel whispered, sliding off the bike behind me and adjusting her protective headset. The device looked almost comically oversized against her practical survival gear.

“Hard to believe something that dangerous could be hiding in a place that looks like it should be broadcasting school closure announcements and local weather.”

“That’s probably the point,” I replied. The padding was comfortable enough, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were about to put Mark’s engineering skills to the ultimate test. “Whatever intelligence is behind this chose a location that wouldn’t attract attention. A small-town radio station is perfect—essential infrastructure that people would expect to see, but not important enough for anyone to investigate closely.”

I studied the building’s exterior with keen eyes, cataloging potential entry points and escape routes. The main entrance faced the street directly, with large windows on either side that would have provided visibility for the reception area during normal operations. Both the windows and the glass doors had been shattered, their frames now holding only jagged fragments that caught the dim morning light like teeth.

The ground floor also featured several smaller windows along the sides of the building, probably offices and storage rooms. Most appeared intact, though several showed the telltale spider-web patterns of impact damage. The second floor had a row of larger windows that likely corresponded to the main broadcast studio and control room, while the third floor featured smaller windows that suggested office space or equipment storage.

“There,” I said, pointing to a section of the building’s east wall where a fire escape ladder provided access to the second floor. “That emergency ladder goes up to what looks like a maintenance platform. If we can climb up without making noise, we should be able to access the building through one of those upper-level windows.”

Rachel studied the route I’d indicated, her virus-enhanced vision allowing her to pick out details that would have been difficult for normal human sight in the dim light just like me actually. “The ladder looks solid, and there’s definitely a broken window we can use for entry. But what about guards? If this place is as important as we think it is, there should be some kind of Infected presence.”

“Only one way to find out,” I said, shouldering my pack and performing a final check of my weapons. The steel spike rode in its custom sheath on my right hip, positioned for a quick cross-draw that would bring it into my dominant hand in a single smooth motion. The hand axe was secured to my left thigh with breakaway straps that would release under pressure, allowing immediate access during combat. Both my shotgun and pistol were positioned for easy accessibility—the shotgun slung across my back where it wouldn’t interfere with movement, the pistol in a hip holster with the safety off and a round chambered.

The frequency recording equipment Mark had provided was the most crucial item in my pack, secured in a padded compartment designed to protect it from impact damage. The device was roughly the size of a hardcover book but significantly heavier, packed with sophisticated electronics that could analyze and record complex audio frequencies with scientific precision. According to Mark, it would need at least five minutes of clear signal to capture enough data for developing effective countermeasures.

We approached the building using the abandoned vehicles in the parking lot as cover, moving in short rushes between cars and staying low to avoid being silhouetted against the lightening sky. The closer we got to the radio station, the more noticeable the unnatural silence became.

The silence felt oppressive, as if the very air had been drained of life and sound.

The fire escape ladder was exactly as I’d observed from a distance—heavy steel construction that had been designed to meet commercial building codes. The metal showed signs of rust, but the basic structure appeared sound. More importantly, it provided a concealed route to the second floor, where we’d have access to the building’s interior without having to negotiate whatever might be guarding the ground-level entrances.

“You first,” I whispered to Rachel, positioning myself to boost her up to the lowest rung of the ladder. “Test each step before putting your full weight on it. We can’t afford to have this thing collapse and announce our presence to everything within a mile radius.”

Rachel nodded and allowed me to lift her up to the ladder’s base, her enhanced strength making it easy for her to pull herself up once she had a secure handhold. She moved with silence, testing each rung and bracket before trusting it with her full weight. I followed a moment later.

The ascent to the second floor took nearly eight minutes of careful, methodical progress. Every few rungs, we would pause to listen for any signs of movement or awareness from inside the building. The windows we passed showed only darkness beyond, though my enhanced vision could pick out vague shapes that might have been furniture, equipment, or something else entirely.

The window we’d targeted for entry was part of what appeared to be the main broadcast studio. Most of the glass had been knocked out, leaving only a few dangerous shards clinging to the aluminum frame. I used the butt of my hand axe to clear away the remaining fragments, creating a safe entry point that wouldn’t cut us as we climbed through.

The interior of the radio station was a monument to small-town broadcasting—functional equipment arranged for efficiency rather than aesthetics, everything designed to serve the community’s needs with limited resources. The broadcast studio contained a modest control board with perhaps thirty channels, far simpler than what you’d find in a major market but perfectly adequate for local programming. Acoustic tiles covered the walls and ceiling, creating the sound-dampened environment necessary for quality audio production.

But what struck me most was the complete absence of the sounds I’d learned to associate with infected presence. Every building we’d ever entered had carried background noise—shuffling footsteps, occasional moans, the scrape of fingernails against walls or furniture. Here, the silence was so complete it felt artificial.

“Something’s wrong,” Rachel whispered exactly what I had in my mind. “This place should have some sign of infected activity if it’s really the source of those calls we’ve been hearing.”

I nodded, drawing my steel spike and holding it in a ready position. “Stay close and keep your barriers ready. If this is some kind of trap, we need to be able to react instantly.”

We moved through the second floor, checking each room for signs of infected presence or clues about the building’s current state. The studios and offices showed clear evidence of hasty evacuation during—personal belongings scattered across desks, coffee cups still sitting where they’d been abandoned, family photos knocked from their frames but not destroyed. Several rooms contained broadcast equipment that was still powered on, LED displays glowing softly in the darkness and creating an eerie atmosphere of interrupted normalcy.

But there were no bodies, no signs of the violence that had marked most outbreak sites. Whatever had happened here had been swift and complete, leaving behind only the hollow shell of a functioning radio station.

“Third floor,” I said, pointing toward a stairwell at the far end of the main corridor. “That’s where we’ll get the best overview of the surrounding area, and it’s probably where they’d position the most important equipment.”

The stairwell was a simple concrete structure, nothing like the grand staircases of major urban buildings. These steps had been designed for utility rather than appearance, with industrial carpeting that muffled our footsteps as we climbed toward our objective. Each landing was marked with simple signage—”Ground Floor: Reception/Administration,” “Second Floor: Studios/Production,” “Third Floor: Management/Technical Operations.”

We reached the third floor landing and paused to examine the corridor beyond. The layout was similar to the second floor but with fewer rooms, suggesting that this level housed administrative offices and technical equipment rather than active broadcast facilities. The hallway stretched from the stairwell to an emergency exit at the far end, with doors branching off on both sides.

That’s when I noticed something that made my enhanced senses go into high alert.

There were infected here, but they weren’t moving.

Four figures stood motionless in the hallway like statues, positioned at precise intervals along the corridor’s length. They appeared to be former station employees—two men in casual shirts and slacks, a woman in business attire, and someone whose clothing was too damaged to determine their original role. They stood perfectly still, not the restless swaying that characterized infected in their dormant state, but complete immobility. Their arms hung at their sides, their heads held level, their breathing so subtle that I had to strain with my enhanced hearing to detect it at all.

“What is that?” Rachel breathed, raising her steel rod to a defensive position.

I motioned for her to stay back while I studied the bizarre scene before us. In all my encounters with infected, I’d never witnessed behavior like this. Even when they weren’t actively hunting, infected typically showed some signs of animation—turning their heads toward sounds, shifting their weight from foot to foot, the occasional vocalization. These four might as well have been mannequins positioned by some deranged interior decorator.

“They’re waiting,” I whispered,. “The screamer, it’s keeping them in standby mode until they’re needed. They’re not patrolling or wandering randomly—they’re stationed here like sentries.”

If the Screamer could maintain infected in this kind of suspended state, it could position them strategically throughout critical locations without the usual problems of patrol patterns or random wandering. We might be walking through a carefully orchestrated defense system maybe.

“Can we get past them without triggering a response?” Rachel asked, though her tone suggested she already suspected the answer.

Before I could formulate a reply, the infected woman in business attire turned her head slowly in our direction. The movement was mechanical, completely unlike the jerky, reactive motions that characterized normal infected behavior. Her clouded eyes fixed on me with an intelligence that sent ice through my veins, and I realized with growing dread that whatever was controlling these creatures was far more sophisticated than simple viral programming.

The woman’s lips curved into something that might have been a smile if it had appeared on a living face. But on her pale, virus-mottled features, the expression was a grotesque parody of human emotion—too wide, too sustained, as if the intelligence controlling her was still learning how facial muscles were supposed to function.

The other three infected turned their heads in unison, their movements synchronized. All four pairs of clouded eyes focused on me specifically, and I realized that they weren’t just aware of our presence—they were analyzing us, identifying threats, probably communicating our location already.

“They’re not just guards,” I said, my voice tight with growing understanding. “They’re sensors.”

One of the male infected—a middle-aged man who had probably been an engineer or technician before the outbreak—tilted his head to one side with bird-like curiosity. When he opened his mouth, instead of the expected moan or snarl, he produced a sound that was clearly communication rather than simple vocalization. It was a series of clicking and whistling noises, complex patterns that suggested language rather than random noise.

The other three infected responded with similar vocalizations, creating a brief conversation conducted in frequencies and patterns that no human throat should have been able to produce. Whatever they were discussing, it was definitely about us, and the conclusion of their exchange seemed to reach some kind of consensus.

“Run?” Rachel suggested, but even as she spoke, we both knew it was too late for simple evasion.

The four infected moved simultaneously, but not with the shambling charge typical of their kind. Instead, they advanced toward us. Two flanked left while two flanked right, creating a pincer movement designed to cut off our retreat to the stairwell while herding us toward the far end of the corridor.

I met the first attacker—the woman in business attire—with my steel spike, driving the point toward her chest in a thrust that should have ended the encounter immediately. But instead of the expected penetration, the spike glanced off her ribs as if they were made of reinforced metal rather than bone. The impact sent shock waves up my arm, and I realized with alarm that these infected had been enhanced far beyond normal parameters.

Her counterattack was faster than anything I’d encountered from infected before. Her fist caught me in the solar plexus with enough force to drive the air from my lungs and send me staggering backward. Without my own viral enhancements, the blow would have ruptured internal organs and probably killed me outright.

Rachel immediately summoned one of her protective barriers between us and the other three infected, the energy field manifesting as a shimmering wall of translucent force that looked like heat distortion made solid. The remaining infected slammed into the barrier with impacts that created visible shock waves through the energy matrix, their enhanced strength obvious from the way Rachel’s defensive field buckled under the assault.

“These aren’t normal infected!” Rachel shouted, reinforcing her barrier as spider-web cracks began to appear across its surface.

I rolled away from another attack by the business woman and came up with my hand axe in my left hand, the steel spike still gripped in my right. Her enhanced durability meant I’d need to target vulnerable points rather than relying on single decisive strikes to vital areas.

The axe blade caught her under the jaw, opening a gaping wound that exposed the bone beneath. Any normal infected would have been at least incapacitated by such damage, but she barely seemed to notice the injury. Dark fluid poured from the gash, but she continued her attack with undiminished strength and coordination.

I activated my wind blade enhancement, feeling the familiar sensation of air currents wrapping around my right arm like living entities. The steel spike became a focus point for the compressed air, turning it into something approaching a projectile weapon rather than just a melee tool.

My enhanced attack drove the spike completely through her skull, the wind enhancement providing enough force to overcome her reinforced bone density. The point emerged from the back of her head in an explosion of brain matter and dark fluid, and she finally dropped as her nervous system shut down completely.

But Rachel’s barrier was failing under the coordinated assault of the remaining three infected. The energy field showed stress fractures across its entire surface, and I could see the strain in Rachel’s face as she poured energy into maintaining the protective wall.

“Drop it!” I shouted, moving toward the failing barrier. “I’ll take all three!”

Rachel released her barrier and rolled aside just as the three infected burst through the collapsing energy field. I met them with both weapons enhanced by my wind abilities, the steel spike finding the eye socket of the middle-aged engineer while the hand axe opened the skull of one of the casually-dressed men.

Both dropped simultaneously, but the third infected—the one whose clothing was too damaged to identify—managed to land a glancing blow across my ribs before I could finish him with a spike thrust through his temple. The impact was enough to crack at least two ribs despite my enhanced durability, and I had to bite back a curse as pain flared through my torso.

“R…Ryan,” Rachel panted, leaning against the wall and wiping blood from her nose. The strain of maintaining barriers against enhanced infected had clearly taken more out of her than she’d expected. “If those were just guards on the third floor, what are we going to find when we locate the actual source?”

Before I could answer, we heard something that made my enhanced hearing focus with laser intensity. From somewhere ahead of us, beyond the corridor where we’d just fought, came a sound that was barely at the threshold of human perception. It was a low humming, almost below the range of normal hearing, but it carried undertones and harmonics that I recognized from our previous encounters with the Screamer’s calls.

“That’s it,” I whispered, pointing toward the far end of the corridor where a door marked “Technical Operations” stood slightly ajar. “Whatever’s generating those calls, it’s in there.”

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