The road east had become a graveyard. Cars abandoned in every direction, some crumpled into ditches, others stripped bare of their tires and doors like vultures had picked them clean. The sun was just starting its climb, a dull red disc smeared by smoke on the horizon. It painted everything in rust and blood.
Michael, Sarah, and Lena moved in silence. Their boots crunched glass and gravel, every step deliberate. The collapse was still fresh days since the world had cracked apart and the quiet already felt louder than gunfire.
Sarah kept close to Michael's side, her bow strung tight, knuckles white around the grip. Lena followed a pace behind, shotgun across her chest, eyes darting to every shadow like they expected it to reach out and grab her.
"Food's running low," Lena muttered, her voice barely above a whisper. "Half a can of beans left, three protein bars. That's it."
Michael didn't look back at her. He kept scanning the street, shoulders tense. "We'll find more. Houses up ahead haven't been picked clean yet. People fled in a rush. Panic leaves plenty behind."
Sarah's voice cracked slightly when she asked, "And water?"
Michael reached down to tap the battered canteen clipped to his belt. "Half full. But we passed two creeks yesterday. We'll filter if we have to." He glanced at her then, sharp but steady. "We're alive. That's more than most can say."
They walked another stretch before the sound reached them.
At first it was faint a stuttering pop carried on the wind. Then sharper cracks followed, unmistakable: gunfire. Automatic. Bursts and single shots overlapping in a jagged rhythm. Shouts rose with it, distant but frantic. A man's voice barked orders, cut short by a scream.
Sarah froze. "That's the army."
Lena's eyes widened. "They're close."
Michael's jaw tightened. He raised his fist for silence and led them off the road, cutting through a line of leaning fences and into the shell of a half-collapsed auto shop. They crouched behind a wall where chunks of concrete had blown inward, peering out through the gaps.
Down the block, maybe two hundred yards away, chaos unfolded.
Ten soldiers were boxed in on the cracked asphalt of an intersection. Their Humvee smoldered nearby, black smoke twisting into the sky. Around them surged a horde of infected at least fifty, maybe more. They poured from alleyways and doors, clawing, sprinting, throwing themselves at the soldiers with mindless fury.
Muzzle flashes lit the street in bursts. Rifles rattled, shotgun blasts boomed. The infected fell, some twitching on the ground, others tripping over the bodies of their own. But more came, drawn by the noise like moths to fire.
Sarah pressed a hand to Michael's arm. "We have to help them!"
Michael shook his head slowly, eyes never leaving the scene. "We'd die before we got ten feet closer."
"But they're soldiers!" she whispered harshly. " If they survive if they have supplies "
"They're bait," Michael cut in. His voice was low, calm, but hard. "That noise? Every infected in a mile radius is already running this way. Look."
And she saw it: down side streets, shapes darted and stumbled forward, screeching, joining the mass. The soldiers were an island drowning in a tide that wasn't going to stop.
Michael's system pinged in the back of his mind, quiet as breath:
> Alert: High-density swarm. Direct engagement = 94% mortality. Alternative solutions advised.
He smirked bitterly. No kidding.
Sarah's eyes glistened with frustration. "So we just… watch?"
Michael's gaze shifted, scanning the chaos, calculating. His hand drifted to the pack at his side, where two of the crude spike bombs rested metal canisters packed with nails and black powder.
"No," he murmured. "We learn."
He crept forward, keeping low, until he reached a break in the wall. From there he studied the flow of the infected. They weren't mindless, not exactly they surged toward the loudest threats, clustering thick where the soldiers fired the hardest. That left pockets, thinner stretches of the tide, weak points like seams in armor.
Michael pulled one spike bomb free. The weight of it was solid in his hand. He looked back at Sarah and Lena. Both stared at him wide-eyed.
"Stay down. Cover your ears," he ordered.
He waited, timed it. A knot of infected broke away from the main pack, rushing down an alley to flank the soldiers. Michael yanked the fuse, counted two breaths, then hurled the bomb in a perfect arc.
It clattered against the pavement, rolled under scrambling feet then exploded.
The blast ripped through the narrow alley, nails shredding flesh, fire flashing against the brick. Screeches cut the air as bodies dropped in heaps, blocking the way. The soldiers shouted in surprise, turning their fire toward the gap Michael had just opened.
"Holy shit," Lena whispered.
Michael didn't stop. He pulled a lighter from his pocket, sparked it, and touched it to a rag-wrapped bottle he'd prepared earlier. The flame caught, orange licking the glass. With a grunt, he hurled it toward a cluster of infected pressing hard against the soldiers' line.
The Molotov burst, flames racing across their clothes, hair, skin. They flailed, shrieking, stumbling into others and setting them alight. For a brief moment the horde broke, chaos folding in on itself.
Sarah gaped at him. "Where did you even"
"Quiet," Michael hissed. "More will come. Always more."
And he was right. The swarm pulled back only for a heartbeat. Already, fresh infected were pouring into the edges of the street, drawn by fire and screams. The soldiers had space now, but it wouldn't last.
Michael crouched lower, pulling the girls back from the gap. "We move. Now."
"But " Sarah started.
"They're already dead," Michael snapped. His eyes locked on hers, cold and unyielding. "You want to die with them? Or live long enough to learn from this?"
Her mouth shut tight, tears threatening at the corners. She nodded once, swallowing hard.
Michael led them through the auto shop, out the rear, and into the skeleton of a housing development. As they slipped between half-built walls and scattered lumber, the gunfire behind them grew more frantic. Then it stuttered, broken, and was drowned beneath the endless screaming of the infected.
When they finally paused in the shadow of a crumbling stairwell, Sarah couldn't hold back. "You could've saved them," she said, her voice shaking. "With those bombs if we'd helped "
Michael leaned against the wall, breathing steady. "We could've delayed their deaths. That's all. A swarm that size? Once it locks on, there's no stopping it. Not for ten men. Not for fifty. You don't fight the tide, Sarah. You ride it. You steer where you can. That's the only way you live."
Lena sank to the floor, running a trembling hand through her hair. "I never thought I'd see… that many. All at once."
Michael's gaze was hard, but there was no cruelty in it just the weight of truth. "And it's only the beginning."
For a long time none of them spoke. The air was heavy with smoke and ash, the faint echoes of battle carried on the wind. Somewhere far off, a single gunshot cracked sharp, final and then there was only silence.
Michael looked at the two girls, their faces pale in the dim light. He softened just enough to add, "You both did good. You kept quiet. You followed orders. That's why we're still breathing. Out here, that's what matters."
Sarah hugged her bow closer, her jaw set. Lena stared at the floor, lips pressed thin.
Michael pushed off the wall. "Come on. Houston's still ahead. And if the army's fighting like that out here…" He glanced back toward the smoke curling into the sky. "Then the city's going to be worse."
They moved on, the three of them threading through the ruins while behind them the fire burned itself out.
And the dead feasted in silence.