The walls of the quarantine zone weren't cages to Michael. They were warnings. A line painted in steel and wire that said: "Cross this, and you're on your own."
Most people obeyed that line. They huddled inside, waiting for food handouts, hoping the soldiers kept the monsters out. Michael knew better. Fences didn't keep monsters out forever. They just bought time. And time was always running.
So when Kyle whispered the idea scavenging beyond the walls Michael didn't argue. He nodded once, gathered what little gear they had, and slipped into the shadows.
They moved at night, the hum of the searchlights sweeping past them like predators' eyes. Kyle had learned the guard patterns. Michael didn't ask how. He followed, his steps silent, his breath steady. He had done things like this before. Different walls, different wars. Same principle. Stay low. Stay quiet. Stay alive.
When the last floodlight passed, they climbed the broken section of fencing near the construction yard. Kyle dropped down first, landing in a crouch. Michael followed, boots crunching softly in the weeds.
And just like that, they were outside.
The air smelled different beyond the zone. Not cleaner no, it carried the same rot, the same burnt-metal tang but freer. The night stretched wide, filled with silence and echoes. The city loomed ahead like a corpse half-lit by the moon.
Kyle adjusted the straps of his pack. "We hit the old subway tunnels first. Fewer patrols, more scrap left behind. People don't like going underground these days."
Michael eyed him, expression unreadable. "People don't like going underground because they like breathing. Spores spread down there."
Kyle shrugged. "Then it's a good thing we found those masks."
They pulled them on crude military surplus, lenses scratched, filters worn but intact. Michael checked the seal on Kyle's mask, then his own. A man didn't survive long if he was careless about air.
The station entrance yawned like the mouth of a beast, its tiled arch cracked and smeared with mildew. Inside, the darkness pressed thick, swallowing the beam of Michael's flashlight as though even light wanted nothing to do with this place.
Their footsteps echoed down the stairs, sharp against the silence. The deeper they went, the stronger the smell grew damp stone, rust, and something fungal that clung to the back of the throat even through the mask's filter.
At the bottom, the tracks stretched out like veins, choked with debris. Abandoned bags lay scattered, torn open by time or hands desperate for anything useful. A stroller sat tipped on its side, wheels rusted in place. Michael didn't look too long at that. Some things were better left unstudied.
Kyle crouched by an old tool locker, prying it open with a length of rebar. The lock gave with a squeal that echoed like gunfire. Both men froze listening then nothing.
Kyle grinned behind the mask. "Got it." Inside were rusted tools hammers, pliers, a half-empty box of nails. Junk to most, but gold for men like them.
Michael sifted through the pile, pulling out what was still usable. "This will do. Wire, nails, sharp edges we can make it all count."
Then the sound reached them.
A wet shuffle. A breath that wasn't theirs.
Michael's hand went to his knife, Kyle's to his makeshift bat. They exchanged a glance, no words needed. Then the shadows moved.
The runner came first, sprinting down the platform with a raw-throated scream. Michael stepped aside at the last second, letting the momentum carry it past him. His knife flashed, sinking into the side of its skull before it could turn. He wrenched the blade free, breathing steady.
"Two more," Kyle hissed.
Shapes emerged from the dark, lurching unevenly, heads twitching like broken dolls. Their eyes glowed faint in the reflection of the flashlight beam.
Michael crouched, voice calm. "Keep distance. Don't get boxed in."
Kyle swung his bat, barbed wire biting into flesh. One infected crumpled with a wet crunch. The other lunged at Michael. He sidestepped, shoved it hard against a pillar, then drove his knife into its throat, angling up into the brain.
The body sagged. Silence returned.
For a moment, the only sound was their breathing inside the masks, ragged and loud.
Kyle let out a shaky laugh. "Shit. I hate how fast they move."
"Don't think about speed," Michael said, wiping the blade clean on his sleeve. "Think about angles. Speed's nothing if they can't reach you."
Kyle nodded, catching his breath. "Right. Angles. You really did this before, huh?"
Michael didn't answer. He moved forward instead, flashlight sweeping the tunnel.
They found spores deeper in. A whole wall of fungus bloomed across the tracks, its surface pulsing faintly as though alive. Pale motes drifted in the air like dust, catching the beam of the light.
Kyle's hand twitched toward his mask. "If we hadn't found these…"
"We'd be choking by now." Michael's tone was flat, clinical. "Never take your mask off in a place like this. Not even for a second."
They skirted the edge of the bloom, careful not to touch it. The sight reminded Michael of war wounds he'd seen on men long ago flesh turned into something unrecognizable, something that no longer belonged to them. The fungus ate the world the same way.
At the far end of the station, they found more scrap metal pipes, broken boards, even a box of half-rotten flares. Michael tucked them away carefully. Smoke, fire, nails, blades all pieces of survival if you had the skill to use them.
But the infected weren't done.
From the darkness of a side tunnel, three more runners burst out, drawn by the noise, by the living heat of their bodies.
Michael didn't hesitate. He yanked a flare from the box, struck it, and hurled it into the tunnel mouth. Red fire roared to life, throwing shadows wild across the walls. The runners shrieked, disoriented, giving Kyle the opening he needed. His bat swung in a brutal arc, smashing one to the ground.
Michael went for the other two. He dropped low, knife flashing, severing a tendon with one stroke. The creature toppled, screaming, before his second thrust silenced it. The last one barreled at him, jaws snapping. He sidestepped again, caught its head, and slammed it against the pillar until bone cracked.
Silence. Only the flare burning low, painting the station in bloody light.
Kyle's chest heaved. "That was too close."
Michael sheathed his knife, calm as ever. "Close is fine. Dead is not."
Kyle gave a dry laugh. "You always talk like that?"
Michael finally looked at him, eyes cold but steady through the mask. "When you've buried enough people, you learn to keep words short."
Kyle didn't argue after that.
They slipped out of the tunnels before dawn, packs heavier, hearts heavier still. Behind them, the station returned to silence, the flare long burned out, the spores still breathing in the dark.
As they climbed back over the fence into the quarantine zone, Kyle finally broke the quiet.
"Think we'll ever stop running like this? Stop scavenging, stop fighting every damn second?"
Michael didn't answer right away. He stared back toward the city, where the buildings hunched like broken teeth against the horizon.
"No," he said at last. "But we can build. And that's different."
Kyle frowned. "Build what?"
Michael adjusted the strap of his pack, eyes unreadable. "A way through."
And as the zone stirred awake with morning chaos, they slipped back into the crowd unnoticed two more shadows among many, carrying secrets of the rot that waited just outside the walls.