Adam SmithThree months ago, viral videos of five slain werewolves found in an Upper East Side townhouse—New York City—sparked several conspiracies and caused worldwide panic, until Universal Pictures stepped in and cleared the air, stating that the werewolves were mere prop corpses for their blockbuster shifter movie.Today, the internet is flooded with videos of zombies staggering through the streets of New York City, their skin gray and peeling, hanging in strips from their bones.I didn’t give it much thought. Last time it was Universal Pictures; this time it might be Warner Bros promoting some scary zombie apocalypse movie.But James had taken it seriously. He’d been scrolling through his phone and yelling in his voice that those were real zombies, plundering the streets and infecting others.“Look at this!” he showed me his phone.A zombie in tattered clothes drenched in blood was staggering through a lonely street with its

Adam SmithBeep. Beep. Beep.My eyes peeled open to see the white ceiling staring back at me. The chirp of life support systems filled my ears, and my body felt strange, like I was trapped in sludge. I couldn’t move my hands when I wanted to, and breathing felt completely odd, as if I were doing it differently.I wanted to move my lips, but couldn’t. Perhaps I had suffered paralysis. Fear struck my spine. Panic filled my eyes. I couldn’t remember a thing—how I got here, how I lost control over my body, what caused the beeps that throbbed in my head now that I had woken.But just then, I heard voices. Voices that my mind recognized as familiar, though the faces that appeared in my sight looked strange. I couldn’t tell if I had seen them before, but they seemed concerned, and their voices floated in my head like a curse.I shut my eyes to escape the chaos.Suddenly, everything went silent. I was dreaming now. I was sure of it because I was seeing a face in m

Adam SmithJames, a forty-year-old man who was more in communication with Grandpa, picked us up from the hospital. I wanted to try my legs on the floor, but the nurses declined my request. They gently placed me in a wheelchair, and Rosa helped wheel me to the helicopter waiting outside the hospital.James was not the pilot, but he sat next to the pilot, while the remaining space was shared between me, Rosa, and Grandpa, who somehow decided to remain entirely silent throughout the short flight.The helicopter finally landed in a massive courtyard of a sprawling estate. As it touched down on the greenery, three black Cadillacs pulled up, stopping some distance away. The doors popped open, and seven men in black suits and tinted glasses surged out and headed toward the copter.The copter’s door was pushed open, and slowly, the men helped carry me out. Though Rosa insisted she would wheel me to the car, they ignored her and placed me in a wheelch

“You cannot enter the infected zone, sir,” the man in charge of the blockade around the red area stated as my team and I walked into his tactical quarters. “Those things are extremely aggressive. Not even the best of my men would risk entering the red zone. We are merely waiting for orders from the President to exterminate everything in there.”I frowned. His words were disgusting. How could he refer to humans infected by a virus the Pentagon had left in the care of a psychiatric patient—a virus they never asked for—as things? I hated him instantly, but I did not act rashly because I knew Adam’s fate depended largely on a decision I was about to influence.“And how do you intend to exterminate everything in there?” I asked, pointing toward the red zone. “How do you plan to kill everything still breathing inside it?”He chuckled and placed both hands on his desk, narrowing his eyes as he gazed at me. He was dressed in full military attire and armed with a handgun he had left on the des

Once again, I touched the painful patch on my neck, wishing I could get a mirror to examine it, but as Doctor Wong joined me in the private room I had been moved into for the physiotherapy session, I lowered my hand and smiled at him.He smiled back and sat on his seat. “Mr. Smith,” his strong Korean accent made my name sound awkward.I raised a brow in response.“I’ve gone through your medical file,” he said. “I don’t think we have too much work to do, except to make you learn how to walk on your feet like you used to.”I nodded. “Did you see the cause of the injury in the file?” I asked.“Yes,” he said, his voice deep and audible enough for me to hear. “You were in an accident.”“That’s what I was told.” I stretched out a hand. “Can I have the file?”He paused, maybe horrified by my demand. His face said it all, but then he snapped himself back to normalcy in a matter of seconds, tugged at his clothes, and relaxed his back against the seat. “Sorry, I didn’t bring it along. It’s in y