Any monster carrying multiple cards stacked over its head was bad news, no exceptions, same as the Anomaly Jake had seen earlier, which had carried far more cards than any Tyrant and hit even harder.But the Anomaly had one glaring weakness, zero intelligence, running purely on instinct to kill and consume.What made a Tyrant genuinely terrifying wasn't just the attack, defense, and speed. It was that on top of all that, it could actually think.Jake could say with total confidence that this wasn't the same Tyrant from Millbrook and he had the glasses to thank for that certainty.The two Tyrants looked almost identical in build and size. Without a close comparison, anyone could easily mistake one for the other.The one giveaway was the cards. This Tyrant's card stack looked completely different from the one back in Millbrook. Jake was certain, the Millbrook Tyrant hadn't been carrying anything rare.Under cover of darkness, the massive thing advanced with heavy, deliberate strides, he

The bus roared past without so much as slowing down, splattering mud and filthy water across the man's face.Out of options, the man snapped completely, screaming into the dark. "You did this to me! You want to be heartless, fine, don't blame me for what happens next!"He wiped the mud off his face, stumbled back to the RV, dug out a submachine gun, and opened fire wildly on the nearest van.Rat-tat-tatMuzzle flashes lit up the dark, bullets tearing into a van speeding past, blowing out a tire and stalling it dead in the mud."Ha! Serves you right! Everyone's dying tonight!" He howled with laughter, his face twisted with something well past reason."You son of a bitch"The van driver, furious, tried to bring his own weapon up, but the man fired first. Blood misted from the driver's chest, and he dropped where he sat."Come on! Don't run! If we're all dying tonight, we're dying together"Still screaming, still hunting for his next target, the man never noticed the massive shape closin

Join the Caravan?The heavyset man and Jake traded a look, both equally thrown off. Neither of them could tell if this was legit or a setup, and for a second, nobody moved.Eventually the heavyset man stepped up to handle it. "Don't you already have a convoy of your own?"Simple question. Cut straight to the heart of it, too.Out here, lone survivors without a group didn't last long. If these two wanted in on someone else's convoy, they'd better have a real explanation, otherwise there was no way the Caravan would take that risk.The two strangers had no idea what Jake's group had gone through that night. Genuinely just looking to join up, they didn't hesitate to lay it all out, how they'd split off from their original convoy, how they'd ended up here.Even without spelling it out, it clicked fast for Jake and the others. Whoever had rigged that road with bombs tonight was almost certainly connected to one of these two groups.If these two strangers were telling the truth, chances wer

The burly man hadn't even managed a warning shout before a deafening blast tore through his convoy.All he could do was watch as the lead vehicle took a direct hit, flames erupting skyward, blooming into a rolling mushroom cloud."Doyle"Watching a man who'd been alive one second turn to ash and wreckage the next, the burly man's face twisted with horror.He'd known, going in, that setting up another group might invite payback eventually. He just hadn't expected it this fast, this decisive, with absolutely no room to fight back.He threw open the car door, staying inside now was suicide. No vehicle on earth could outrun something in the sky.BOOMAnother explosion tore through the back of the group. Their exit was gone.The buzzing overhead kept building, more drones joining by the second. Without hesitating, he threw himself out of the car, rolling hard onto the shoulder of the road.The instant he cleared the door, the vehicle that had carried him through every close call up to now,

"Hey, man, nice riding back there. That bike's sick too."A young guy with bleach-blond hair lay hidden in the grass nearby, striking up conversation on his own."It's fine." Jake had zero interest in small talk and kept his answer flat.The kid, clearly some old street-racing type, the kind who used to burn gas money on illegal drag races before the world ended, kept pushing. "I used to race, actually. Always wanted a bike like this one..."Jake didn't bite. He kept sorting his crossbow bolts instead. Not many left, he'd burned through a chunk at the school, and his count was under twenty now. Used carefully, maybe a dozen would get the job done."Hey, want some gum?"Seeing Jake ignore his backstory entirely, the kid, Tyler, dug out a treasured pack of gum and held it out instead.Jake didn't take it."C'mon, don't be like that. We're in the same convoy, aren't we"Watching him lean in this hard, Jake finally caught on. Tyler was working an angle, building rapport now so if things w