Price trudged along the outskirts of the forest, maintaining the railway track in his peripheral vision with the practiced awareness of a man who'd spent three decades navigating hostile territory. Not too close to be exposed, not too far to lose his heading. It was the perfect balance—a corridor of movement that kept him concealed within the treeline while the twin rails of rust-colored steel served as his compass pointing south toward Terminus.
His boots pressed softly against the forest floor, each step purposeful but measured, avoiding the dry branches and dead leaves that would announce his presence. The underbrush was thick here, a tangle of brambles and low shrubs that caught at his trousers, but it provided excellent cover. Through gaps in the vegetation, he could glimpse the railway embankment—a raised bed of gravel and rotting wooden ties overgrown with weeds.
Never walk where you're exposed, Price thought, the old lesson resurfacing unbidden. It was one of the first things they'd drilled into him during his early days in the SAS, one he'd seen violated far too many times with predictably fatal results. Stay off the skyline. Use cover and concealment. Make yourself a hard target.
The railway he followed was just one of many sprawling tracks, all converging like arteries toward a common heart—Terminus, or so the map claimed. Whether that destination would offer salvation or just another bloody fight was anyone's guess. Price didn't like unknowns, never had, but thirty years of military service had taught him to operate despite them. Intelligence was always incomplete, the enemy's intentions never fully clear. You adapted, improvised, and stayed alive.
As he walked, his mind wandered back to yesterday's encounter—those two walkers he'd dispatched with his combat knife. Their slow, lurching movements had made them easy targets, provided you kept your cool and aimed for the head. That was the key lesson he'd internalized quickly: the brain was the kill switch, the only thing that mattered. Everything else—heart shots, gut shots, limb strikes—was a waste of time and energy. Destroy the brain, stop the walker. Simple. Brutal. Effective.
Still, the thought lingered like an itch he couldn't scratch: how the bloody hell had this gotten so far out of control?
The United States of America—the self-proclaimed "most powerful nation in the world," the global hegemon with military reach on every continent. A fighting force unmatched in size, technology, and budget. Carrier battle groups that could project power anywhere on the planet within days. Air superiority that could turn entire battlefields into smoking craters. Intelligence networks that could track a terrorist's phone call from a cave in Afghanistan to a safe house in Pakistan.
Yet here Price was, walking through what felt like the ruins of their empire, past abandoned infrastructure and silent towns where nothing moved except the dead.
Price had fought alongside Americans before, during joint operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hell, he'd trusted them with his life on more than one occasion. Their forces were sharp, well-drilled, and bloody terrifying when they needed to be—professional soldiers who took their craft seriously. Navy SEALs, Delta Force, Marine Raiders—men who could hold their own against anyone in the world.
But this? This was failure on an unimaginable scale.
"Was it incompetence?" Price wondered, his mind worrying at the question like a dog with a bone. He didn't want to believe it—couldn't quite reconcile the capable soldiers he'd known with the apocalyptic collapse that had clearly occurred. "No, it couldn't be just that," he muttered under his breath.
Or was it something deeper—some fundamental cock-up in the chain of command? Maybe orders had gotten muddled in the chaos, contradictory directives flowing from different departments, each one undermining the others. Or maybe no one had possessed the authority—or the balls—to make the hard calls when it mattered most. Martial law sounded decisive on paper, but implementing it across a nation of over three hundred million people spread across millions of square kilometers? That was a logistics nightmare even before the dead started walking.
He thought of all the advantages they should've had. Reconnaissance satellites that could read license plates from orbit. Predator drones capable of tracking movement patterns across entire regions. Apache gunships with chain guns that could chew through a horde in seconds. M1 Abrams tanks with enough armor to drive straight through a crowd of walkers and enough firepower to level city blocks. AC-130 gunships with 105mm cannons that could turn a zombie swarm into a fine red mist.
Yet none of it seemed to have worked. The outbreak had spread anyway, society had collapsed anyway, and now Price was navigating a dead world like some post-apocalyptic ghost.
"A cock-up of this magnitude doesn't happen without multiple failures at multiple levels," Price reasoned, pushing through a low-hanging branch. "Maybe it was all of them—command paralysis, political interference, resource allocation gone sideways."
Maybe the virus had simply been too quick, too silent in its initial spread. It only took one domino to topple the rest—one infected person slipping past a checkpoint before symptoms appeared, one military base overwhelmed when half its garrison turned overnight, one refugee camp descending into chaos as the infection spread like wildfire through packed shelters. Suddenly your defensive line collapses like a house of cards, because your reserves are fighting outbreaks in their own ranks, and your supply lines are cut because truck drivers aren't showing up for work.
That was the thing about humans—they were disciplined and predictable right up until they panicked. Then it all went to hell.
Price scowled as he pushed another branch out of his way, the motion more aggressive than necessary. The walkers themselves weren't even formidable opponents when taken individually or even in small groups. Slow, clumsy, operating on pure instinct with no tactical awareness whatsoever. They weren't soldiers. They weren't armed. They were just... shells. Meat puppets driven by some primal hunger.
A child with a cricket bat could handle one walker if they kept their head. Two or three, if they were clever about it. But when the numbers stacked up into the hundreds or thousands, when panic set in and training went out the window, when people started turning on each other in the chaos—fighting over supplies, shooting at anything that moved, abandoning their posts to check on family—that's when the real danger began.
That's when the collapse became inevitable.
And now, here he was, picking his way through the aftermath. Survivor in a dead world. Soldier without a war to fight. Not exactly how he'd pictured his retirement.
A flicker of movement in the distance snapped Price out of his brooding thoughts like a rifle shot. His body reacted before his conscious mind caught up—dropping into a low crouch behind a cluster of dense bushes, his right hand automatically moving to his rifle, his breathing slowing to minimize noise.
His sharp eyes narrowed, scanning the area with the methodical precision of a sniper searching for targets. There—just ahead, perhaps a hundred meters south along the railway tracks—three silhouettes moved against the harsh backlight of the afternoon sun. They were walking in the middle of the rail line, fully exposed, seemingly unconcerned with basic tactical awareness.
Civilians, Price assessed immediately. No military training, or they'd know better than to skyline themselves like that.
He remained perfectly still, watching, gathering information before making any decisions. The trio came into sharper focus as they moved closer: a black man in his thirties, lean and wiry with the build of someone who'd been doing a lot of running and not enough eating. He carried a baseball bat—wooden, looked like ash, good weight for skull-cracking—and had a knife sheathed at his side. His tank top and ragged jeans told a story of survival—functional clothing chosen for mobility, not appearance. The fabric was stained with what could be dirt, sweat, or old blood.
Beside him walked a Latina woman, probably mid-twenties, moving with a cautious grace that suggested she'd learned to be aware of her surroundings. She had her own knife—looked like a hunting blade from this distance—and a backpack slung over her shoulders that seemed reasonably well-packed. Her long sleeves and cargo shorts weren't exactly optimal apocalypse attire, but she carried herself like someone who'd seen her share of fights and walked away from them.
Then there was the teenager bringing up the rear—white kid, maybe sixteen or seventeen, wearing a backward Yankees cap and clothing that marked him as the youngest by far. No weapons in hand, though he had a backpack like the others. His movements were less assured, more nervous, but he wasn't frozen with fear. Green, but not useless.
Price's tactical assessment continued as he watched them progress down the tracks. The man was clearly the leader—his body language, the way he periodically glanced back at the others, the subtle authority in his movements. The woman was experienced, competent, watching their flanks without being prompted. The kid was the liability, but he was learning.
Then Price saw what they were walking toward, and his jaw tightened.
Walkers. A small horde—Price counted quickly, his mind automatically cataloging threats—eleven of the bastards, shambling down the tracks from the opposite direction. They were spread out in a loose cluster, their movements uncoordinated but inexorable. The distance between the two groups was closing rapidly.
The black man spotted them, and his voice carried clearly across the open ground, sharp with urgency but controlled. "Izzy! Take position!" There was a hint of fear underneath the command but he was keeping it together.
The woman—Izzy, apparently—moved immediately, circling behind the group with her knife ready. She knew what she was doing, Price noted with approval. Creating a defensive perimeter, preparing for threats from multiple directions. Not amateur hour.
The man, meanwhile, started banging his bat against the metal rail, the sharp clanging sound echoing across the landscape. Drawing aggro, Price realized. Smart. The nearest three walkers immediately altered course, lurching toward the noise with single-minded focus. Their growls and moans rose in pitch—that wet, rattling sound that Price was rapidly learning to hate—as they sensed prey.
"Grrhhhh..." "Nnnghhhhaaaa..."
The man stepped forward to meet them, putting himself between the walkers and his companions. Brave, or stupid. Maybe both. His bat swung in a brutal overhead arc, connecting with the first walker's skull with a crack that reminded Price of a cricket ball hitting a wicket. The walker dropped like a marionette with cut strings, its brain scrambled, its reanimated corpse finally staying down.
Izzy moved with surprising speed and precision, her knife flashing as she drove it through the temple of the second walker, then withdrew and stabbed the third through the eye socket. Both dropped within seconds. Messy technique—she was getting covered in walker blood and brain matter—but effective. She'd done this before, probably many times.
Price watched them silently from his concealed position, his mind dissecting every movement, every decision, cataloging strengths and weaknesses. They've got coordination, he thought. Not amateurs. They're working as a team, covering each other's blind spots. The lad's green, nervous, but he's not panicking or getting in the way. The other two know what they're doing.
It was the way they moved together—the man issuing orders with confidence born of experience, the woman following without hesitation because she trusted his judgment. They weren't bumbling idiots, and they weren't bandits either. Price had developed a knack over the years for reading people, for spotting the subtle tells that distinguished professionals from posers, predators from protectors.
His gut—that instinctive sense that had kept him alive through countless operations—told him these three weren't the type to slit your throat while you slept and steal your gear. They had that quality, that intangible something, that marked them as fundamentally decent people trying to survive in an indecent world.
But that didn't mean they weren't a potential risk.
"Could slow me down," Price muttered under his breath, barely audible even to himself. "Three extra mouths to feed, three more targets for walkers to chase. Could draw more trouble than they're worth."
But even as he thought it, another part of his mind—the part that had commanded Task Force 141, that had built a team of the world's finest soldiers—was considering the opposite angle.
"But maybe..." He weighed the options with the cold calculation of a man making a tactical decision. People could be liabilities, absolutely. But they could also be assets. Force multipliers. Eyes and ears where he couldn't be. Hands to share the load. And in a world where the dead walked and society had crumbled, allies might make the difference between survival and a shallow grave.
The walkers—now down to eight after the trio's initial success—continued their shambling advance. The group was handling them, working methodically to thin the ranks, but Price could see the strain starting to show. The man's swings were getting less powerful, fatigue setting in. Izzy had taken a step back to catch her breath. The kid looked ready to bolt.
Price made his decision.
He drew his M1911 sidearm smoothly, the weight of the weapon familiar and reassuring in his hand. From his vest pocket, he produced a suppressor—cylindrical, black, threaded to match the barrel—and carefully screwed it into place with practiced precision. The suppressor wouldn't make the weapon silent, despite what Hollywood suggested, but it would reduce the report from a ear-splitting crack to a sharp cough. More importantly, it would prevent the sound from carrying kilometers through the forest and drawing every walker in the area.
His hands moved with the unconscious efficiency of muscle memory built over decades. Safety off. Chamber already loaded from earlier. Stance: modified Weaver, weight slightly forward, arms extended but not locked. The iron sights came up, aligned perfectly on the nearest walker's head.
One squeeze of the trigger—smooth, controlled, the break as familiar as breathing—and the suppressed weapon coughed. Thwip. The walker dropped, a neat hole appearing in its forehead, the back of its skull exploding outward in a spray of brain matter.
Price didn't pause to admire his work. The sights were already tracking to the next target. Thwip. Another walker down. Thwip. A third collapsed mid-stride. He worked with methodical efficiency, each movement economical, each shot hitting its mark with the precision that came from firing thousands of rounds in training and hundreds more in combat.
Within perhaps ten seconds, all eight remaining walkers were crumpled corpses on the ground.
The group froze, startled by the sudden intervention. The man spun around, his bat raised defensively, his eyes scanning the treeline for the source of the gunfire. The woman moved immediately to shield the teenager, stepping in front of him with her knife held ready, her body language protective but not panicked.
Price stepped out from the shadows, moving with deliberate calm. His pistol was lowered to his side, finger off the trigger and resting along the frame, but still in hand. His posture was relaxed but ready—he wasn't offering a threat, but he wasn't vulnerable either.
"Easy now," Price said, his gravelly voice carrying easily across the distance. It was the voice of command, of authority earned through years of leading men in combat. "If I wanted trouble, you'd already have it."
The truth of that statement hung in the air between them. He'd had clear shots at all three while they'd been distracted fighting the walkers. If his intentions had been hostile, they'd be dead already.
The man processed this logic quickly—Price could see the calculation behind his eyes—and lowered his bat slightly. Still wary, still ready to fight if necessary, but not immediately hostile.
"Thanks," the woman—Izzy—said cautiously, her voice carrying a slight Spanish accent. Her knife remained in her hand, Price noted. Smart girl.
Price gave a small nod of acknowledgment, his sharp blue eyes continuing their assessment. Up close, he could see more details: the man's hands were calloused and scarred, the woman had a fresh bruise on her jawline, the kid was malnourished. They'd been through hell, all of them, but they'd survived. That counted for something.
"Reckon you lot can hold your own," Price said, gesturing toward the pile of freshly dispatched walkers scattered around them. "Not bad work, all things considered. Coordination's solid. Could use some refinement in your technique, but you're getting the job done."
The man glanced at the others then back at Price. "We're managing," he replied, his tone neutral, giving nothing away. "What about you?"
Price's mouth quirked into a faint smirk, the expression carrying a hint of dark amusement. "I'm managing too," he replied.
He reached up with his free hand, adjusting the brim of his boonie hat where it had been knocked askew by a branch earlier, the gesture casual but serving to show he wasn't reaching for another weapon. "Price is the name. John Price."
Caleb's POV
Caleb's chest heaved as he tried to stay calm, forcing his breathing to slow despite the adrenaline flooding his system. The weight of his backpack felt heavier with every passing second, the straps digging into his shoulders, his legs trembling slightly from the constant state of alertness he'd maintained for the past hour.
The walkers had appeared without warning, shambling around a bend in the tracks where the railway cut through a small rise. Eleven of them, spread out in a loose cluster that blocked their path forward. Caleb's stomach had dropped when he'd first spotted them, that familiar spike of fear that never quite went away no matter how many times he'd faced the dead.
Darius's voice cut through the tension like a knife, sharp and commanding. "Izzy! Take position!"
He barked the order with authority, his tone leaving no room for hesitation, but Caleb could hear the undercurrent of fear beneath the bravado. They all felt it—that knowledge that one mistake, one slip, could mean infection and death. But Darius never showed it openly, never let his fear paralyze him, and that strength kept the rest of them moving.
Izzy moved quickly, her movements fluid and practiced as she circled around to their rear. Her knife caught the sunlight as she positioned herself to guard their backs. She'd learned the hard way that walkers could come from any direction, that you always needed someone watching your six.
Darius, always the loud and commanding one, started banging his bat against the metal rail. The sharp metallic clanging echoed across the open ground, harsh and attention-grabbing. Three of the walkers immediately turned toward the sound, their milky eyes fixing on Darius, their mouths opening to release wet, gurgling moans as they lurched in his direction.
The growls and snapping jaws felt louder than they had any right to be, making Caleb's skin crawl and the fine hairs on his arms stand up. "Grrhh-chhkkk...!" "Rrrhhhhh..." The sounds were like nothing human, barely even animal—just hunger given voice through rotted vocal cords.
Caleb stood back, gripping the straps of his backpack so tightly his knuckles turned white, his eyes darting between his friends and the eight walkers that were still shambling toward them from ahead. His pulse hammered in his ears, nearly drowning out the sounds of combat as Darius and Izzy engaged the first three.
He wanted to help, wanted to prove he wasn't useless, but he also knew his limitations. He had no combat training, no weapons besides a small pocketknife that would be worthless against a walker. His job was to watch, to warn them if the other walkers got too close, to not become a liability that got someone killed trying to protect him.
Darius swung hard, the crack of his bat against bone echoing in Caleb's ears like a gunshot. The first walker's skull caved in with a sickening crunch, brain matter and dark blood spraying across the gravel. The corpse dropped instantly, truly dead this time.
Izzy moved like a dancer, all controlled grace and economy of motion. Her knife flashed in the sunlight as she drove it through the temple of the second walker—in and out, quick and clean—then pivoted to stab the third through the eye socket before it could grab her. Both walkers collapsed within seconds of each other.
They were messy, sure—both Darius and Izzy were covered in splatter now, dark stains on their clothes and skin that would need to be washed before the fluids could seep into any cuts or scratches. But they got the job done. They always did.
Caleb wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but his attention stayed locked on the larger group of walkers that still loomed ahead, their shuffling movements bringing them closer with every passing second. His muscles were taut and ready to shout a warning if the dead got too close, to give his friends precious seconds to react.
That's when he saw him.
A man emerged from the treeline like a shadow made solid, moving through the scattered brush and low branches with the silent, deliberate precision of a predator stalking prey. Caleb froze, his breath catching in his throat, his eyes going wide as he got a better look.
The figure was tall—over six feet, broad-shouldered and powerfully built. He wore tactical gear that looked military: a load-bearing vest covered in pouches and equipment, sturdy combat gloves, boots that had seen serious use. A boonie hat cast a shadow over the upper half of his face, but Caleb could see the stubble of a well-maintained beard, sharp blue eyes that missed nothing, and an expression of absolute focus.
A rifle—assault rifle, Caleb's mind supplied, though he didn't know enough to identify the specific model—was slung across the man's back on a tactical sling. In his hands, held with the casual competence of someone who'd carried weapons for years, was a pistol. Even from this distance, Caleb could see the cylindrical attachment on the barrel. A suppressor. A silencer.
Every part of him screamed soldier. Not just in his gear but in how he moved—calm, controlled, efficient. No wasted motion. No hesitation. The way he held the pistol, the way his eyes scanned the area in overlapping arcs, the way he positioned his feet for optimal balance—it all spoke of professional training and extensive experience.
Before Caleb could even process what was happening, before he could shout a warning or alert his friends, the man sprang into action.
He raised the pistol in one smooth motion, his stance solid and stable, his arms extended but not locked. There was a brief pause—so quick Caleb almost missed it—where the man seemed to take a breath, steady himself.
Then he fired.
The sound wasn't the deafening crack Caleb had expected from watching movies and TV shows. Instead, it was a sharp, suppressed cough—thwip—followed immediately by the wet impact of a bullet hitting flesh and bone. The nearest walker's head snapped back, a neat hole appearing between its eyes, and it crumpled to the ground like a puppet with cut strings.
Thwip. Another walker down.
Thwip. A third collapsed mid-stride.
The man worked with mechanical precision, each shot following the previous one in rapid succession. His movements were fluid and practiced—sight picture, trigger press, reacquire target, repeat. No fanfare. No dramatic poses. Just professional marksmanship executed with clinical efficiency.
Eight shots. Eight walkers. Not a single wasted round. The entire engagement lasted maybe ten seconds from first shot to last, and when it was over, all the remaining walkers were nothing more than corpses sprawled across the railway gravel.
Caleb's jaw went slack, his mouth falling open in shock and awe. He'd never seen anything like it. Even as just a teenager—someone who'd spent more time playing video games and watching action movies than doing anything practical—even he could tell this wasn't just some random survivor who'd gotten lucky scavenging military gear.
This man was a professional. Special operations level. The kind of soldier Caleb had seen in documentaries about Navy SEALs and Army Rangers. Every shot had hit its mark with no wasted effort, no hesitation, no sign of stress or uncertainty. It was like watching a machine—flawless, methodical, and somehow terrifying in its efficiency.
Caleb's thoughts flashed unbidden to the military camp he'd been at a few months ago—the one that had been overrun by a massive horde. He'd been there with his family when it happened, when the hundreds—maybe thousands—of walkers had torn through the defensive perimeter like it was made of tissue paper.
Those soldiers, the National Guard troops manning the camp, hadn't been like this man. Caleb had seen them panic as the horde approached, their movements becoming frantic and uncoordinated. He'd watched them fire wildly into the mass of bodies, wasting ammunition on center-mass shots that did nothing to stop the walkers. Their coordination had crumbled under pressure, officers shouting contradictory orders, defensive positions abandoned as troops fled in terror.
The camp had fallen within hours. Caleb had barely escaped with his life, separated from his family in the chaos. He still didn't know if they'd made it out.
But this guy? He was something else entirely. If the soldiers at that camp had been like him—if they'd had his training, his discipline, his ice-cold composure under pressure—maybe the camp wouldn't have fallen. Maybe things would've been different. Maybe his family would still be alive.
The thought sent a pang through Caleb's chest, grief and what-if scenarios mixing into a painful knot, but he forced it down. This wasn't the time.
He tore his gaze away from the pile of freshly dispatched walkers to glance at his friends. Darius and Izzy wore the same expression he felt creeping over his own face—equal parts awe and wariness. Neither of them had moved yet, both frozen in the moment of trying to process what had just happened.
Izzy instinctively stepped in front of Caleb, her knife still held tightly in her hand, her body tense like a coiled spring. Her protective instinct was admirable, but Caleb wasn't sure what she thought she could do against someone who'd just dropped eight walkers in as many seconds. Darius kept his bat raised, his knuckles white from gripping the handle so hard, his eyes locked on the stranger with a mixture of gratitude and suspicion.
None of them moved. None of them spoke. The tableau held for what felt like forever but was probably only a few seconds.
The man lowered his pistol slightly, the barrel now pointed at the ground rather than in their direction. His posture relaxed fractionally—not vulnerable, but no longer in immediate combat mode. His sharp blue eyes studied them with an intensity that made Caleb feel like he was being x-rayed, like this stranger could see straight through to whatever he was made of.
"Easy now," the man said, his voice gravelly and steady, with a British accent that caught Caleb off guard. It carried a weight of authority that made Caleb's stomach flip—the voice of someone used to giving orders and having them followed. "If I wanted trouble, you'd already have it."
The logic was undeniable, delivered with matter-of-fact certainty. The stranger had been in a perfect position to take them out while they were distracted. He hadn't. That had to count for something.
Caleb glanced at Darius, whose bat wavered in his hands for a moment before he finally lowered it. Not all the way—he kept it at his side, ready to bring it back up if needed—but enough to signal he wasn't looking for a fight. Izzy relaxed just enough to glance at Caleb over her shoulder, her protective stance still in place but slightly less aggressive.
A tense silence hung in the air, broken only by the wind rustling through the grass along the railway embankment and the distant cawing of a crow.
Caleb felt his pulse quicken again, though not from fear this time. There was something about this man—his presence, the way he carried himself, the casual competence that radiated from him like heat from a fire. Caleb couldn't explain it, couldn't put it into words, but for the first time in a long while—since before the camp fell, since before his world had ended—he felt like they might actually have a chance.
Like maybe, just maybe, they'd found someone who could help them survive this nightmare.
The man finally broke the silence, nodding toward the pile of walkers at their feet—the three Darius and Izzy had killed, still leaking fluids into the gravel. "Reckon you lot can hold your own," he said, his tone carrying a note of professional assessment. "Not bad work, all things considered."
Darius straightened up, some of his natural pride reasserting itself. He looked first at Izzy, then at Caleb, a silent question passing between them: What do we think? Then he turned back to the stranger. "We're managing," he replied, his voice steady despite the lingering adrenaline. "What about you?"
The man's mouth quirked into a faint smirk, an expression that suggested he'd heard worse situations described with more optimism. "I'm managing too."
He reached up with his free hand, adjusting the brim of his boonie hat where it sat low on his forehead, the gesture casual but serving multiple purposes—showing he wasn't reaching for a weapon, giving them a better look at his face, establishing a more human connection than just standing there with a gun.
"Price is the name," he said, his blue eyes meeting each of theirs in turn. "John Price."
Another silence followed, but this one felt different—less charged with immediate danger, more weighted with cautious curiosity. Caleb exchanged glances with Darius and Izzy, seeing his own thoughts reflected in their faces.
They didn't know much about this man—this John Price—beyond what they'd seen in the last minute. They didn't know where he'd come from, what he wanted, whether he could be trusted beyond the immediate moment.
But one thing was absolutely clear, undeniable and impossible to ignore:
John Price wasn't just another survivor scrambling to stay alive in a dead world.
He was something else entirely.
And that could be either the best thing that had happened to them in months... or the most dangerous.