Chapter 112: The day everything fell

Hale sat on the wooden bench outside the watchtower, shadows cast over his eyes, a rag moving slowly across the body of his rifle.

Wipe. Turn. Wipe again.

The motion was steady, practiced. He had done it a thousand times before. The metal caught the light as he worked, but his eyes were not on the weapon.

They were on the compound.

People moved through the yard below. Guards switching posts. A few workers hauling supplies from the storage building. Smoke drifted from the cooking fires near the mess hall.

It looked like any other day.

Except it wasn’t.

Three people were missing.

Adrian. Aubrey. Isabella.

Days had gone by, and none of them had come back.

Hale’s jaw tightened slightly.

He remembered the conversation with Aubrey before she left. The way she looked at him when she asked about Adrian.

He had brushed it off.

His own man with his own problems.

That was what he told her.

…Or maybe it had been harsher than that.

The rag slowed in his hand.

Below him, a sudden roar echoed through the lower level of the compound.

Hale’s hand stopped.

The rag slipped from the rifle and dropped to the wood beside him.

—

“HAHAAAA! NOW YOU OWE ME THE TIN FOOD YOU’VE BEEN HIDING IN THAT DRAWER!”

A group of men burst into laughter around the card table.

One of them groaned and threw his deck down in frustration.

“Man, that’s bullshit.”

Someone clapped him on the shoulder. Another man leaned over him and hooked an arm around his neck, ruffling his hair.

“Pay up, man. Don’t be salty now.”

“HEY!”

The voice cut through the room like a blade.

Everything stopped.

The laughter died instantly as Adira stepped into the doorway, her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed.

“What the hell are you people doing?” she snapped. “Making all that noise. If you’re gonna slack off, at least be quiet about it. Damn.”

The men looked away like kids who had just been caught.

No one argued.

Adira scoffed under her breath and turned away.

Carl hurried after her, trying to keep up with her pace.

“It was their break, you know,” he said.

“Well someone had to say something,” Adira replied. “They keep carrying on like that and every infected in Texas is going to come knocking on our door.”

Carl smiled a little at that.

It was soft.

“I guess someone has to be the bad cop.”

They kept walking through the compound yard.

Guards passed them as they made their rounds. Callahan led a small group of soldiers across the training area, checking posts and watching the perimeter.

Near the medical building, Terri stood with a few others, talking quietly while they sorted through bottles and notes spread across a folding table.

They had been working nonstop on the pills. The ones meant to suppress the urges in infected people.

For the first time in a long while, it felt like they were making progress.

Carl looked around at everything.

“You know,” he said, “maybe this is what Adrian meant when he said we should make the most of this place.”

Adira glanced at him.

Carl kept talking.

“I mean… nothing lasts forever, right? The whole surge thing made me realize that. I mean— I thought I was gonna live in that camp in Chicago for the rest of my life.”

Adira stopped walking.

“Hey.”

Carl looked over at her.

Her expression was serious.

“It’s our job to make sure nothing happens to this place,” she said. “This compound has potential. A lot of it.”

She looked out at the yard, the guards, the workers, the small signs of life growing again.

“Think of everything we’ve built already,” she continued. “This could be so much more than just a place where people survive day to day.”

She finally looked back.

“You start thinking like it’s temporary, and it’ll be gone before you even realize it.”

Carl watched her for a moment.

Then he nodded slowly.

“…Yeah,” he said. “You’re right.”

They started walking again.

Above them, on the watchtower bench, Hale finally picked the rag back up.

But this time he wasn’t looking at the rifle.

He was still staring out at the compound.

…and that’s when he saw it.

Something twisted deep in Hale’s stomach.

A convoy of vehicles.

They were coming fast.

Too fast.

Dust kicked up behind them as they tore down the old road toward the compound. Hale lifted the binoculars slowly, his brow tightening as he focused the lenses.

And then he saw the trail behind them.

Trees were burning along the roadside. Some had been shot apart, splintered and blackened. Smoke drifted up into the sky where the convoy had passed.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

There were bodies.

Some were piled along the road. Others were tied to the fronts of the vehicles like trophies. A few heads had been stacked along the hoods, their faces frozen in twisted expressions.

The kind of cruelty only the infected had shown since the surge began.

Hale’s grip tightened on the binoculars.

He focused on the lead vehicle.

A woman sat in the passenger seat.

Even from this distance, he could see her eyes.

They burned a furious red, with streaks of orange crawling along the edges of her corneas.

Hale’s breath caught.

“No…”

His voice dropped to a whisper.

“No. No no no no.”

He dropped the binoculars and grabbed his rifle in one motion. The magazine clicked into place as he worked the bolt, raising the weapon to his shoulder.

The first shot cracked through the air.

The bullet tore through the windshield of the lead car.

Glass exploded outward.

But the vehicle didn’t swerve.

Didn’t slow down.

It kept coming.

—

Inside the vehicle, the driver leaned forward against the wheel.

A wide, gruesome smile stretched across his face. His eyes glowed red like the others.

But something was wrong.

There was barely any amber in them.

Just a faint flicker.

His hands shook violently as he drove. Sweat ran down the side of his face. His breathing came in sharp, hungry bursts.

Withdrawal.

Every infected packed inside the convoy showed the same signs.

They had been starved.

Deprived.

Driven into something worse than madness.

Which meant there was only one reason they had been sent here.

The driver’s lips twitched as he rocked slightly in his seat.

“I want,” he muttered.

His voice trembled.

“I want… I want I want I want I want—”

The gate rushed toward them.

He laughed.

The vehicle slammed straight through it.

Metal screamed as the front bumper crushed the barrier. The car skidded across the compound yard, smashing into a supply building.

Wood splintered. People scattered too late.

The car plowed through everything in its path.

Blood streaked across the ground behind it.

When it finally stopped, the driver’s body hung halfway out the shattered window.

Dead.

—

Screams erupted across the compound.

The rest of the convoy burst through the broken gates behind it.

Doors flew open.

The infected poured out.

Gunfire cracked from the guard towers. Bullets tore through bodies, but the attackers kept coming. Some ran straight into the crowd, tackling people to the ground.

Guts spilled onto the dirt.

One infected grabbed a flaming torch from the wreckage and hurled it into a row of supply crates. Fire climbed the wood in seconds.

People ran in every direction.

Carl stood frozen in the middle of the chaos.

His eyes were wide, tears already forming as he watched one of the guards get dragged down by three infected at once.

“Carl!”

Adira grabbed his hand hard.

“Move!”

Another explosion echoed somewhere behind them.

She pulled him with her as the compound collapsed into screaming, gunfire, and fire.

—

Fear settled deep in Terri’s chest as she ran.

The lab had exploded into chaos within seconds. Tables had been overturned, glass shattered across the floor, alarms screaming overhead. Scientists pushed past each other in the narrow hallway, no one stopping to help anyone else.

Terri tried to keep up.

She was smaller than most of them, and the crowd swallowed her quickly. Someone slammed into her shoulder. Another shoved past from behind.

Her feet slipped.

She hit the floor hard.

For a moment she couldn’t breathe.

When she looked up, the hallway had become a nightmare.

Dr. Tekashi had fallen only a few steps away. One of the infected had grabbed him by the collar and dragged him down before he could even scream properly. The thing tore into him like an animal.

Blood sprayed across the wall.

Terri’s eyes widened as tears flooded them.

She scrambled to her feet and ran.

She didn’t stop until she reached the small hallway that led to her quarters. Her hands shook so badly she almost dropped the key while unlocking the door. When she finally got inside, she slammed it shut and shoved the lock into place.

The noise outside echoed through the walls.

Screams.

Gunfire.

Something heavy crashing.

Terri slid down the door and covered her mouth as tears poured down her face.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

They were supposed to be safe here.

She forced herself up and rushed across the room toward the small pile of pillows and clothes near her bed. Her hands dug through it desperately until she found the walkie talkie she kept hidden there.

She lifted it to her mouth.

Her voice shook.

“Aubrey? Aubrey do you read? The compound’s in trouble. You need to come—..”

The words died in her throat.

A few feet away, sitting on the small desk by the wall, was another walkie talkie.

Aubrey’s.

The one she had given her before she left.

Terri stared at it in silence.

“She left it…” she whispered.

Of course she did.

The first slam hit the door hard enough to make the walls shake.

Terri jumped.

Another slam followed.

Then another.

The wood groaned under the impact.

Despair filled her chest like cold water. Whoever was outside wasn’t trying to get help.

They were trying to get in.

Terri dropped the radio and rushed to her dresser. She yanked the drawers open one after another, tossing clothes and papers aside while the pounding on the door grew louder.

Then her hand hit something cold.

She froze.

A gun.

Her fingers closed around it slowly as another violent hit shook the door.

Terri brought the weapon up with trembling hands and pressed the barrel under her chin.

The metal was cold against her skin.

Outside the door, someone laughed. It wasn’t human anymore.

Her eyes squeezed shut.

Her finger tightened slightly on the trigger.

But it wouldn’t move.

She tried again.

Nothing.

A broken breath escaped her as she lowered the gun, tears still streaming down her face.

“I can’t…” she whispered.

Another slam shook the door so hard the hinges creaked.

Terri opened her eyes.

Slowly, she raised the gun again.

This time she pointed it at the door.

The handle started to bend inward.

The wood splintered.

And Terri stood there shaking, waiting for whatever came through to see her first.

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