The dam had been alive with noise for weeks. Hammers striking steel, saws chewing through logs, welding torches spitting sparks into the night. To the people inside, the noise meant progress. To the wilderness beyond, it was a beacon.
And the wilderness had listened.
It began just after sundown.
A boy on the ridge tower leaned over the railing, straining to hear. At first it was only faint a shuffle, a wet rasp, the slap of uneven footsteps. Then came the sound that froze him where he stood.
Clicking.
High, sharp, and terrible.
His hands shook as he rang the bell.
Michael was already moving before the second toll echoed across the canyon.
"Positions!" he shouted, voice carrying through the dam like a crack of thunder.
The stronghold snapped awake. Survivors grabbed rifles, pipes, and sharpened spears. Hunters scrambled up the towers. Alice lit her torch-machete, flame hissing into the dark. Tommy herded families into the turbine hall, barking for calm.
Torches blazed along the walls. Shadows jumped across the concrete as the valley came alive with screams.
Then the first runner burst from the treeline.
It came in a staggering sprint, fungus blooming across its cheek, mouth open in a howl. Behind it came more five, ten, then a dozen. Runners shrieking, clickers lurching with heads crowned in grotesque fungal plates.
"Hold the line!" Michael roared, raising his rifle. His shot cracked the night, dropping the first runner mid-stride.
Arrows whistled from the tower. Clubs smashed against skulls. Traps snapped a spring-spike slammed through a runner's chest, pinning it to the wall before bending sideways. A propane tripwire burst into fire, throwing three infected to the ground in burning heaps.
For a heartbeat, it felt like the defenses might hold.
Then the flood came.
Dozens broke from the treeline at once, their screams rolling like a storm.
On the west wall, two clickers clawed at the steel. Kyle hurled a Molotov over the edge. Fire bloomed, shrieks split the night, and the stench of burning rot filled the air.
On the east flank, Alice swung her torch-machete in a wide arc, the fire trailing bright as it split a runner's chest. Sparks rained down, but the propane hissed and sputtered. The flame died, leaving her with nothing but steel.
"Shit!" she snarled, stabbing again as another runner climbed the wall.
Michael moved like a shadow, never wasting a step. Rifle shots, pistol cracks, then his axe in his grip, its edge sparking as he drove it through bone. One runner collapsed, another's neck split, a clicker's chest caved in.
But even as he killed, he saw shapes in the dark that were wrong.
Some were different.
One slammed its body against the gate over and over, fungus pulsing across its shoulders. Each impact made the steel groan until its skull burst in a spray of spores.
Another scuttled on all fours, unnaturally fast, leaping for the wall. A hunter's arrow skewered it mid-air, but its twitching body rattled everyone on the line Michael's stomach clenched, the fungus is changing.
The fight became chaos.
On the north wall, Ellis one of the welders swung his rebar club again and again, smashing skulls until a runner grabbed his arm and bit deep. He screamed, shoving it back, blood spraying. Tommy dragged him behind the line, shouting for someone to end it. The gunshot came a moment later.
On the east flank, a propane trap misfired. The blast tore through the infected and through Lorna, another welder. Fire swallowed her whole, hurling her broken body against the wall. Survivors froze, her screams cutting through the night, until Michael barked them back into motion.
Everywhere, weapons broke, traps jammed, arms gave out. The compressed-air rifle spat a single bolt before its seal blew. The hydraulic punch sleeve buckled at the wrist, nearly breaking the man using it. Still, they fought.
By midnight, the walls dripped with black blood. The ground below was littered with twisted bodies, some smoldering, some twitching until arrows pinned them still. Survivors fought until their voices broke, until their arms shook too hard to swing.
Then, silence.
For a long moment, no one moved. Only the crackle of fire and the ragged sound of breathing filled the night.
Michael leaned on his axe, chest heaving, eyes scanning the treeline. Nothing stirred. They were alive.
But at a cost.
By dawn, the dam was quieter than it had been in weeks.
Four bodies lay wrapped in blankets: Ellis, Lorna, and two others torn apart in the chaos. Others sat bandaged, trembling, their faces gray with exhaustion. Children cried softly in the turbine hall, clutching at their parents.
Michael walked the walls alone, checking every trap, every weapon, every corpse. His jaw was tight, his eyes hard. The defenses had worked barely.
The survivors had seen what the walls could do. But they had also seen how quickly they could fall.
When he returned to the fire, the others looked up at him with tired, hollow eyes.
"We held," Tommy said. His voice was low, rough. "That's what matters."
Michael didn't answer right away. He looked out over the valley, where smoke rose from the burned bodies and the morning light touched the trees.
"We held," Tommy said. His voice was low, rough. "That's what matters."
Michael finally spoke, voice quiet but steady.
"They'll be back. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe a month from now. Maybe when we think it's quiet. We don't get to choose when. All we can do is be ready."
The others fell silent, the truth pressing down on their shoulders like the weight of the dam itself. The infected weren't gone they never would be. And the hardest part was not knowing when the next scream would rise out of the dark.