Chapter: Chapter 9: A Piece of CandyThe Tyrant caught the smell of blood on the air. It paused, then abandoned the chase entirely, turning to walk toward the flipped car with slow, heavy steps.Da, da, da...Marcus, covered in blood and clearly carrying multiple fractures, could only manage to fire his gun one-handed at the thing bearing down on him.Between his shaking grip and the recoil, most of the shots went wide, doing nothing.The Tyrant bent down, closed a massive hand around his head, and lifted him out of the wrecked car like he weighed nothing at all.Crunch.A wet, sickening sound followed as the fingers tightened. Marcus's skull gave way like an overripe melon, splattering red and gray across the pavement."Help, stay back, don't"...Jake had left before the fighting broke out, but he hadn't gotten far. He'd caught glimpses of it all in his mirror, man against monster, and then woman against man.None of it was his business, and he had no interest in getting dragged into it. But once the two women finished
Last Updated: 2026-07-13
Chapter: Chapter 8: Hurting Others, Hurting YourselfNikki hadn't opened fire, not out of fear. If they were about to die anyway, fear wasn't really the concern anymore.It was just that things hadn't quite reached the point where dropping all pretense made sense yet."Sierra, floor it. Whatever happens, we're finishing this today," Nikki said through gritted teeth.Forget the old grudge. What the Reed brothers had just tried to pull left zero room for peace between them anymore.If that was how it was going to be, they might as well burn the bridge completely.The Reed brothers wanted to dress up a Tyrant kill as an "accident." Fine. Two could play that game.Everyone out here was running for their lives, a few unfortunate mishaps in the chaos wouldn't raise many eyebrows.Like, say, accidentally flipping the car in front of you.Couldn't have it both ways, could they?"Leave it to me."Sierra caught on instantly. The panic drained out of her expression, replaced by something colder. She stomped the accelerator without another second o
Last Updated: 2026-07-13
Chapter: Chapter 7: Kicking Someone When They're DownJake had just swung a leg over his bike when a burst of gunfire erupted from the street ahead.A massive off-road truck came tearing around the corner, weaving hard.Even before any upgrades, it must have started life as a serious piece of machinery. After at least two rounds of fusion work, it looked like it could go toe-to-toe with a pre-collapse SWAT vehicle.What actually caught his eye, though, was who was driving it, two young women.One had both hands on the wheel. The other had half her body braced through the sunroof, gripping a mounted heavy machine gun like she'd been born holding one, spraying fire behind them without flinching."...It's them."Jake recognized the pair instantly.The one on the gun was Nikki Turner. The one driving was Sierra Lang.They'd joined the Caravan not long ago. Their story was that their old group had gotten wiped out in some disaster, and the two of them had barely made it out alive.Not many people in the Caravan actually bought that story.Bot
Last Updated: 2026-07-13
Chapter: Chapter 6: TyrantInfected could evolve too. Whether it was an Anomaly or a Licker, both were just evolved branches off the same root, different paths, same origin.If ordinary infected were the slow, shambling type everyone pictured from old zombie movies, the high-tier ones belonged in a different category entirely, fast, vicious, nothing shambling about them.The one saving grace: the brain stayed their weak point, no matter how far they evolved.Right now, that blue card hovered above the thing's head, glowing bright in the dim room.Jake gripped his crossbow, staying low as he crept toward the courtyard gate, angling for a clean shot. His focus narrowed down to a single point.Now.Fwip.The bolt flew true.It punched straight through the thing's skull. Its massive frame swayed for a beat before crashing to the floor.A second later, the blue card dissolved into light and drifted into Jake's open palm, solidifying into a playing-card-sized rectangle.The card showed a syringe, with two words print
Last Updated: 2026-07-13
Chapter: Chapter 5: MillbrookThe Caravan rolled out a little after nine that morning. There was no fixed destination, there never was. That was just how survival worked now.Stay in one spot too long, and the scent of living people would eventually pull in every infected for miles, along with whatever mutated horrors happened to be roaming nearby.Between the constant extreme weather, sudden ground collapses, and land and water poisoned past saving, the amount of livable space left in the world had shrunk down to almost nothing.Moving, constantly moving, scraping by in the gaps between ruins and open wilderness, was the only thing keeping anyone's hope alive at this point.Route decisions belonged entirely to the leader and his inner circle. Regular members of the Caravan didn't get a vote. Follow along or strike out on your own, that was the extent of anyone's choice.Jake had no interest in challenging that setup. Not yet, anyway. As long as the Caravan wasn't obviously driving toward disaster, he was content
Last Updated: 2026-07-13
Chapter: Chapter 4: GrenadesJake didn't brake. He didn't ease off either.The front wheel ground down on the Licker's torso, dragging it screeching across the concrete, carving a thirty-foot smear of blood into the pavement until it pinned the thing hard against a wall corner. The rear tire kept spinning, shrieking, throwing up white smoke.Before the Licker could recover enough to fight back, Jake had his pistol out and was firing straight into its skull.Bang, bang, bangAt that range, there was no missing.The head caved in and the thing went still for good. The red card hovering above it dissolved into light, then reformed solid in Jake's outstretched hand. Only then did he let himself exhale.Card secured, he didn't push his luck. He turned the bike around and rode straight back to his gutted shell of a house.Getting a card out of that had already been more luck than skill. Push for more and he'd end up as another body in the dirt by morning.With the gear he currently had, going toe-to-toe with a Licker w
Last Updated: 2026-07-13
