The tunnel was quiet again, but the silence didn't feel like safety. It felt like a held breath, the kind you knew wouldn't last long.
The Clicker's body lay sprawled on the cracked tiles, fungal growth spilling across its skull like a grotesque crown. The smell of it rot mixed with damp earth and gunpowder clung to the air even through their masks. Michael crouched and pressed his fingers against the hilt of his knife before wrenching it free. Fungal tissue clung to the blade in stringy clumps.
Sarah gagged, turning her face away. Lena leaned against the wall, pale, swallowing hard like she was fighting the urge to vomit. Alice kept her gun trained on the corpse, her hands shaking but her eyes locked, refusing to look away.
Michael slid the knife back into its sheath and finally broke the silence.
"Look at it," he said. His voice was steady, almost clinical. "This is what time does to the infection. It doesn't stay the same. It mutates. Adapts. Becomes something harder to kill, something harder to predict."
Lena whispered, "That thing was blind. But it… it still found us."
"Sound," Michael said. "It uses sound. That clicking? It's echolocation. Like a bat, only worse. You make noise, it knows exactly where you are. Understand?"
Sarah nodded quickly, still hugging her weapon to her chest. "Stay quiet. Always."
"Good." Michael's eyes moved across all three of them. "That's the lesson. Stay quiet, stay alive. But if you can't stay quiet… you finish the fight. Fast."
No one spoke. The weight of what they'd seen sat on their shoulders like lead.
Michael adjusted his pack. "We're not going back empty-handed. Let's move."
They pushed deeper into the tunnels, flashlights sweeping across walls lined with mold and half-collapsed signs. Rats scurried through the shadows, their tiny claws scratching against the broken tiles. Every sound made the girls flinch.
The tunnels eventually opened into an old subway platform. Rusted tracks ran into darkness, half-submerged in stagnant water. Abandoned trains sat like corpses, windows shattered, doors hanging open.
Michael climbed onto the platform, motioning for the others to follow. "Spread out, stay within sight. Look for copper, steel, anything we can salvage. Pipes, wiring, intact batteries if we're lucky."
They got to work. Sarah pried wires from the walls, her hands trembling less with each pull. Lena found a toolbox under a bench, most of it rusted junk but a few screwdrivers and wrenches still usable. Alice checked the train cars, covering her mouth with her sleeve against the stench of old rot inside.
Michael scavenged with practiced ease, his mind half on the work and half on the girls. Every little thing they picked up was another step forward, another lesson. Survival wasn't only about killing monsters. It was about building, creating, preparing.
He found a half-crushed crate near one of the pillars, pried it open, and smiled faintly. Inside were a few coils of barbed wire, rusted but intact. Perfect. He tucked them into his pack.
Sarah appeared beside him a few minutes later, holding a bundle of stripped wires. "Is this good?"
Michael tested the copper with his fingers, nodded. "Good. Keep it dry. We can use it for traps, maybe even for circuits later on."
She smiled weakly, a flicker of pride breaking through the fear.
For a while, it almost felt normal like scavenging was just another chore. But normal never lasted.
The first growl came from the far end of the platform. Low, wet, vibrating through the dark.
Michael's head snapped up. "Masks on. Lights out."
They clicked off their flashlights, the platform swallowed in pitch black. The only light came from a faint glow of fungus spreading across the ceiling.
Shapes emerged. At least half a dozen infected stumbled along the tracks, drawn by the sound of their earlier fight. Most were Runners still human-shaped, faces twisted, fungal growth creeping along their necks. But one of them… one of them moved slower, heavier, its shoulders hunched under a grotesque mass.
Michael's stomach tightened. Another Clicker.
He whispered, barely audible: "We can't fight them all. Too much noise. We do this clean."
Sarah swallowed audibly. Lena's breathing quickened. Alice just gripped her pistol tighter.
Michael pulled the barbed wire from his pack, worked fast. He looped it between two support pillars at shin-height, then gestured for the girls to crouch behind a fallen bench.
The Runners climbed onto the platform, twitching, sniffing, their heads jerking side to side. The Clicker clicked, its voice bouncing off the walls, guiding the rest toward them.
When the first Runner stumbled into the wire, it screamed as the barbs tore into its flesh. It fell, thrashing, tangling the wire tighter around its legs. The others turned toward the sound.
Michael was already moving. He lunged from the shadows, drove his knife into the trapped Runner's throat, silencing it. Another charged, and he swung his pipe hard, the crack of bone loud in the tunnel.
Alice fired once, hitting a Runner in the chest, dropping it. Sarah froze for half a second, then screamed as another came at her. Michael shoved her aside and buried his knife in its eye.
The Clicker shrieked, rushing forward, arms flailing. Michael reached into his pack, yanked out a spike bomb he'd been working on from scrap earlier. He lit the fuse with his lighter and hurled it.
The explosion wasn't huge, but it was enough. Shrapnel tore through the Clicker's fungus-covered skull, spraying blackened chunks across the platform. The others fell in the chaos, their screeches cut short.
Silence returned, heavier this time.
Sarah sat on the floor, clutching her weapon, tears streaking her dirt-smeared face. "I… I almost…"
Michael knelt beside her, gripping her shoulders. His voice was firm, not gentle. "You didn't freeze. You lived. That's what matters. You'll do better next time."
She nodded shakily, biting her lip.
Alice holstered her pistol with trembling hands. "That was too close."
Michael looked around at the carnage. "Every fight is too close. Remember that."
They scavenged in silence after that, tension thick as smoke. By the time they made their way out of the tunnels, their packs were heavier with scrap and wires, but their steps were slower, their eyes hollow.
The city above greeted them with fading daylight. The quarantine walls loomed in the distance, ugly but safe. For now.
As they walked back, Sarah finally spoke, her voice small. "Are they going to keep changing? The infected… are they going to keep getting worse?"
Michael didn't answer right away. He looked at her, at Lena, at Alice all three scared, desperate for something he couldn't give. Hope.
"Yes," he said finally. His tone was blunt, merciless. "They'll get worse. Stronger. Smarter, maybe. That's what infection does. It learns. But so do we. That's why we train. That's why we keep moving. The only way to win is to outlearn them."
Lena whispered, "And if we don't?"
Michael stared at the horizon, at the walls of the quarantine zone etched against the dying sun. His voice was low, almost a growl.
"Then we die."
No one spoke after that.
The lesson was written in blood, and none of them would forget it.