He didn't learn it from the news.
And not from the radio.
He learned it because he was too late.
It happened a few days after he first understood the rule: head.
Back then, Harry still observed more than he acted.
That was why he remembered everything so clearly.
He saw them near a roadside store.
A family.
A man, a woman, and two teenagers stood in the open parking lot, arguing loudly—like the world still responded to confidence.
Harry stopped several dozen meters away.
He almost walked past.
Then he heard the scream.
The walker came from behind a truck.
Slow. Awkward. Almost harmless-looking.
The man swung a crowbar.
Missed.
The walker grabbed his arm.
And bit.
It all happened in seconds.
Harry's arrow took the walker through the skull instantly.
The body dropped.
But the man was already screaming.
"It's just a wound!" the woman pressed cloth against his arm with shaking hands. "We'll clean it—"
Harry stepped closer.
Looked.
The bite was deep. Torn. Blood already darkening.
"No," he said quietly. "It's over."
"You don't know that!" she shouted. "Who do you think you are?!"
Harry didn't answer.
He stayed.
The man died an hour later.
And minutes after that—he stood up.
Then everything became clear.
Not air.
Not water.
Not chance.
The bite.
Harry left.
Not because he didn't care.
Because sometimes knowledge arrives too late to save anyone.
He met the Morales family the next day.
Three people lay pressed into a roadside ditch while two walkers wandered slowly along the road.
"Don't move," Harry said calmly.
They didn't.
Two arrows.
Two heads.
Silence.
"You just—" the woman couldn't finish.
"If you're alive, speak quietly," Harry said.
He checked them quickly.
"Names."
"Carlos," the man said. "Mechanic. Engines. Generators. Anything that runs."
Harry nodded.
"Ana," the woman said. "Nurse. ER. Trauma. Infection."
He looked at the boy.
"Luis," he whispered.
Harry was silent for a moment.
"You're useful," he said.
"What?" Ana blinked.
"It means I'm not leaving you," Harry replied.
They stopped in the woods that night.
Out of sight of the road.
"If you want to live," Harry said, "you need to learn how to kill the dead."
Carlos went pale.
"I… I can't—"
"No," Harry cut in. "Not can't. Learn—or die."
He showed them the rule.
"Head. Always."
One strike.
Another.
"Don't hit harder. Hit cleaner."
They trained for an hour.
Hands shaking.
Legs weak.
But they learned.
The bandits came at dusk.
Three men.
A shotgun.
A pistol.
Smiles.
"World's over," one of them said. "New rules now."
"Yes," Harry replied. "Just not for you."
"Down," he told the Morales family.
They didn't ask questions.
The first arrow killed the man with the shotgun.
The second bandit fell before he understood why.
The third ran.
Harry didn't chase.
One shot.
Head.
Silence snapped back into place.
Ana stared at the bodies.
Her hands trembled.
"You just— you just—" She couldn't finish.
"They would've killed you," Harry said. "Slowly."
Carlos sank to the ground.
"The world…" he whispered. "It's not ours anymore."
Harry nodded.
"That's right."
That night, Harry didn't sleep.
Because now he knew two things for certain.
The virus spreads through a bite.
And the most dangerous creatures left in the world
aren't the dead.
They're the living
who decided the rules no longer apply.
End of Chapter 10