Logan barely slept, not from exhaustion, but from instinct. Every groan of the earth overhead and every pipe's hiss became a possible breach. He imagined waking up to soil pouring in through the seams—clawing hands, broken teeth, snarling faces. No dreams. Just failure.
So instead, he worked.
He modified the girl's cot, securing a low-power medical monitor beside her. Nothing fancy—just enough to track pulse, oxygen, and body temperature. If she turned, he'd know before it was too late.
By dawn, Logan had assembled a scouting kit: purified water, protein bars, a shortwave receiver, two flares, his 10mm sidearm, and an old bolt-action rifle that had never jammed once in four years of testing.
He paused before leaving, scrawling a note on duct tape near her pillow:
Gone scouting. Lockdown active. Don't touch the filters.
She might never wake up.
But if she did, she'd know not to screw with the systems.
The hike took longer than it should've. Three hours stretched into four, as Logan moved in wide spirals, checking high ground, ducking behind wrecked fences and rusting vehicles. Every open stretch of earth felt like a kill zone. Every shadow held the possibility of teeth.
The silence was back. That unnatural, oppressive quiet that had settled over the land in the weeks after the Fall. No birds. No insects. Not even the wind.
Halfway there, he passed a carcass—a dog, or what used to be one. The limbs were elongated, the joints were wrong, and the spine arched like a question mark. Fur had given way to rigid muscle and cracked hide. It looked fossilized but gave like fresh meat when Logan prodded it with his boot.
Still warm.
He scanned the horizon and waited three minutes.
Nothing.
Then he moved on.
The farm came into view in pieces—a collapsed silo, a burnt-out house, broken fencing tangled with bone-white vines. What was left of the barn leaned like it had been struck from within. The ground bore blackened scars, craters from explosions or firebombs. Someone had tried to defend this place.
Someone had failed.
He crouched on a slope overlooking the property and pulled out his scope. Wind rustled a torn American flag, half-shredded, hanging from the barn rafters—no visible movement.
But in the dirt below: footprints, tire tracks, deep claw marks.
The place had been visited recently.
He advanced slowly, staying to cover. His boots were silent, and his eyes were sharp. When he reached the barn door, he froze. The smell hit him.
Blood. Charred flesh. Gunpowder and oil.
Inside, the floor was stained with arcs of dried gore. Drag marks led out of the rear. Shell casings littered the ground—shotgun shells, handgun brass, and several .223 rounds. Three weapons. Likely two defenders.
He found no bodies.
Just aftermath.
A mechanical sound drew his attention to the farmhouse. Not a groan or a growl—something deliberate.
Click.
He moved like a ghost through the shattered porch, keeping low and rifle up. Inside, the air was thick with mildew and ash. Someone had boarded the windows from the inside, but they had been torn open, not outward, inward*.*
In the back room, he found a half-dead solar-powered radio hooked to a cracked car battery. The panel on the roof had seen better days. Still, the radio buzzed weakly.
"...anyone listening... coordinates... northwest safe zone... repeat, northwest..."
Logan jotted down the signal ID and the coordinates. It was probably a trap, or not. Either way, it was intel.
He was about to shut it off when he heard it.
A breath.
Not his.
He turned.
From the adjoining room, something moved. The shuffle of limbs that didn't walk right. A dragging step, like one leg longer than the other.
He raised the rifle, backed into the doorway, and breathed silently.
The thing that stepped into view had once been human, but not recently. Its skin was slack, its jaw unhinged, chest rising and falling in slow, unnatural rhythm. One eye was missing; the other stared, fogged but alert.
It didn't charge.
It waited.
Logan fired once, the shot echoing through the house like a hammer.
The thing dropped. Twitched. Stopped moving.
He exhaled.
Then he heard the second breath.
There was another.
And it had heard him.
The second one was faster.
It moved like it remembered how to hunt. The shuffle turned to a sprint the moment Logan's boot scraped across the old wood floor. He didn't aim. He ducked, rolled, and the creature slammed into the wall behind him, splintering ancient drywall like cardboard.
His rifle came up mid-motion. He fired.
Missed.
The creature was already moving again, bounding low like a feral beast. It had arms too long for its torso, legs with joints that didn't line up right. Its skin was smooth—no rot. This wasn't a zombie.
This was something new.
The bolt clicked empty. Logan threw the rifle to the side and drew his sidearm, firing two quick rounds into its chest.
The thing faltered. Screeched like tearing fabric. Then dropped.
But it wasn't dead.
Its body twitched. Bones cracked as it tried to stand again.
Logan didn't wait. He holstered the pistol, pulled a flare, struck it, and threw it.
The beast screamed as the light hit its flesh. Smoke curled up from its skin.
It hated light.
He didn't finish it. He ran.
Out the door, across the yard, back to the treeline. Only once he was behind cover did he stop to breathe.
He marked it in his logbook later: "Subtype unknown. Agile. Semi-intelligent. Light-sensitive. Potential Tier 2 or pre-evolved apex form."
That night, Logan watched the girl in the bunker sleep under the low red light. She hadn't moved. Still breathing. Still human.
He watched the monitors for hours.
Somewhere beyond the woods, he knew that thing was watching, too.
And it wasn't alone.