The infected woman's howl cut through the air like a rusted blade—a sound that didn't belong to anything human. It was a wet, guttural wail, half scream and half choke, as if her lungs were collapsing with every breath.
Tariq froze.
He knew that sound.
It wasn't just a noise. It was a *call*.
From the ruins of the aquarium, shadows peeled away from the walls. Figures lurched forward, their bodies twisted by time and the virus. These weren't the sprinting monsters of the early days—these were *walkers*, creatures on the edge of decay.
Their flesh sagged off their bones, stretched thin like melted wax. Some had jaws hanging by tendons, clicking uselessly as they shuffled. Others were missing limbs, their stumps blackened and necrotic, dragging themselves forward with grotesque determination. Their eyes—milky, ruptured—locked onto Lerato and Tariq with a hunger that never faded.
And then they came.
Not in a sprint, not like before. This was slower. Relentless. A tide of rotting meat and clicking teeth.
Tariq's breath turned sharp in his chest.
They're learning.
Back at the Castle of Good Cape, Jan Frekkie had been a colonel before the world ended. Now, he was something else—a grizzled warlord in a world without rules.
His base of operations was the old Castle of Good Hope, its stone walls reinforced with scrap metal and barbed wire. Inside, maps of Cape Town covered the walls, marked with safe zones, infected nests, and supply routes.
Frekkie's army wasn't an army anymore. It was a patchwork of survivors—former soldiers, cops, criminals, and anyone who could hold a gun.
At the top: Frekkie himself. Hard-eyed, gray-bearded, with a voice like gravel. He didn't give speeches. He gave orders. Deon, a former Special Forces sniper, handled scouting and recon, Anika, a ex-ER nurse, ran the medical bay with brutal efficiency, and Ruben, a street gang leader before the outbreak, managed scavenger teams.
And then there were the foot soldiers—people like Lerato and Tariq. Scavengers. Scouts. The last desperate fingers of humanity trying to claw back survival.
Frekkie didn't promise safety. He promised structure. And in a world where the infected weren't the only monsters, that was enough.
Cape Town had one advantage: the land itself.
The city was cradled by mountains, its streets winding and steep. The walkers, already decaying, struggled with the terrain. Their rotting muscles couldn't handle the inclines like they used to. The narrow roads bottlenecked hordes, making them easier to pick off.
But that didn't make them harmless.
It just made them predictable.
Lerato and Tariq had spent years memorizing the choke points—where to run, where to hide, where to make a stand. The walkers might be slow, but they never stopped. Never slept.
And now, they were calling to each other.
The howl hit Tariq like a fist to the chest.
It wasn't just the noise—it was what it meant.
Early in the outbreak, the infected were mindless. They screamed, they attacked, but they didn't communicate.
This was different.
This was coordination.
The sound burrowed into his skull, vibrating in his teeth. It wasn't fear he felt—it was something worse.
Realization.
If the walkers were learning to work together, then humanity wasn't just losing.
It was already dead.