I moved through the convenience store slowly, flashlight clenched tight in my hand. The beam cut through the dark in narrow slices, sweeping shelves, counters, shattered glass. Every step felt wrong—too loud, too deliberate—as if the building itself was listening.
That noise again.
Wet. Rhythmic. Like something being torn apart with patience.
My grip tightened as I followed it, heart pounding hard enough to make my ears ring. The air smelled coppery now. Sweet and rotten all at once.
I rounded the aisle—
—and froze.
The man in the flannel lay sprawled across the floor, limbs twisted at angles that didn't belong to anything alive. His chest was torn open, ribs split apart like a broken cage. Deep stab wounds carved his neck, jagged and uneven. Blood pooled beneath him, dark and glossy, spreading until it mirrored my flashlight beam back at me.
My stomach dropped.
Infected..?
