The truck rumbled
down the ruined streets, its tires crunching over shattered glass and the
remains of the dead.
Logan gripped the wheel tightly, his knuckles white as he
navigated through the hell around him.
Fires rage in the distance, thick plumes
of black smoke curling into the bruised, bloodstained sky.
The acrid scent of
burning flesh mixed with the stench of decay, a suffocating fog that clung to
everything.
Gunfire
cracked in the distance, drowned out by the howling shrieks of the infected.
Logan swerved around an overturned ambulance, the bloated bodies inside
twitching, gnawed open by scavengers.
A man staggered into the street, his
intestines dragging along the asphalt, clutching at his throat as he tried to
scream.
A pack of infected tackled and tore into him, their teeth sinking into
his flesh.
"JesusChrist..." Emma whispered, covering her mouth.
Her fingers dug into the
door handle, her entire body trembling.
"Don'tlook babe."
Logan reaches over and places his hand on her thigh to reassure her.
A National Guard barricade loomed ahead, bodies hanging off the razor wire, some still
twitching.
Soldiers fought desperately to hold the line, but it was futile.
One screamed as he was dragged into the horde, his rifle firing wildly before going
silent.
An explosion caused the barricade to collapse, unleashing a flood of
ravenous bodies.
Logan floored the gas, the truck smashing through the remains
of a checkpoint.
Blood splattered across the windshield as they plowed over an
infected soldier, his broken body flailing before disappearing beneath the
tires.
A gas station exploded a block away, the fireball rolling into the sky.
The blast rocked the truck, sending flaming debris raining down.
Logan barely avoided a
burning car flipping end over end.
Ghost growled in the backseat, ears pinned,
sensing death all around them.
"Shhh, I know boy." Logan speaks to calm Ghost down.
As they sped past another block, they saw National Guard soldiers making their last stand on the steps of a police station.
One soldier, missing part of his arm, continued
firing his M4 until the last bullet clicked.
He was immediately swarmed, his
agonized screams silenced beneath a mass of tearing claws and gnashing teeth.
Another soldier tried to crawl away, his legs chewed to the bone, reaching for
help that wasn't coming.
The infected showed no mercy.
Something slammed against the window of the truck.
A face twisted in hunger, its eyes
clouded and milky.
Its jaw snapped, spattering saliva against the glass.
Logan
swerved, sending it tumbling across the pavement, where another vehicle crushed
it into pulp.
The city was
a graveyard, and they were driving through its final death throes.
What seemed
like hours, the group finally found themselves in the neighborhood where Logan
and Emma live.
The suburban roads were eerily silent.
The chaos of the city had
been left behind, but the sense of dread lingered.
The streetlights flickered,
casting long, ominous shadows as the sun began to set.
Logan pulled
into the driveway, his hands shaking as he pushed the button on the garage remote
in his truck.
The door groaned open, swallowing them into the fragile illusion
of safety.
The moment the engine cut off, Emma let out a sob, pressing a hand
to her stomach.
"We made it," Logan muttered, as much to convince himself as her.
The doctor
climbed out of the truck, his face lined with exhaustion.
His eyes scanned the
darkened neighborhood, his expression unreadable.
"Thank you for the
assistance."
Logan turned
to him.
"Don't mention it. Let's head to the living room. We need to
talk."
The doctor
exhaled, rubbing a hand over his graying beard.
The four of them walked into
the living room and Logan had Emma sit and he knelt beside her.
"So,
doctor, got a name?"
Logan
side-eyed him as he kept his main focus on Emma.
The doctor
cleared his throat. "I'm Dr. Curtus Caldwell, and well I ran the clinic back
there."
"Well Dr.
Caldwell, first I apologize for the inconvenience from earlier, but I think you now see my reasoning behind it."
Logan gently
rubs Emma's arm.
"You want
some water babe?"
Emma nods
her head slightly.
Logan rises
to go to the kitchen and fetch a bottle of water.
He returns and opens it for
her and let's her have it.
"I can't
believe what I saw," Caldwell says.
He rubs his beard slightly.
"The hospital told me not to worry about it too much, but as things progressed
further, they said to not get infected."
Logan snaps his
head to the doctor and narrows his eyes. "What are you saying?"
Logan rises
and takes a step forward towards Caldwell.
"Logan, stop."
Emma reaches up and grabs Logan's shirt tail.
Logan let's out a sigh and
then sits down beside Emma.
He clicks his tongue as he looks at the doctor.
"Explain."
Caldwell
cleared his throat again.
"Can I have some water as well?"
Logan sighs
and slaps his knees as he shoots up from the couch and heads to the kitchen.
As he enters the kitchen, he hears Emma say, "You'll have to forgive him doctor,
Logan's upset and stressed out."
Logan
grumbles to himself as he snatches another bottle of water.
He then steps over
to the kitchen table and grabs one of the chairs for the doctor.
"Here,"
Logan says, offering the chair and water to Caldwell.
Caldwell
gratefully takes a seat and takes a big gulp of water.
He sighs in relief.
"Many thanks
Logan."
He clears his throat.
"Alright. I don't know much about this pandemic,
but I was just said that they haven't found anything that could combat this
disease yet."
Emma
swallowed hard.
"You mean there's no cure?"
Caldwell
shook his head.
"Nothing the hospital said they had worked. I even tried
some vaccines, and antibiotics on the patients that came to the clinic but just
found out later that they went to the ER because they got worse."
Logan
clenched his fists.
It's just as Mark had said.
"Doctor,
what about your family?" Emma asked.
Ghost whines
from the kitchen and starts nudging his metal bowl across the floor to signal
that he was hungry.
Logan rises from the couch once more to go take care of Ghost.
"My children
have nothing to do with me anymore and well my wife passed a few years back so
I'm alone," Caldwell said.
Emma could
hear Logan talking to Ghost from the kitchen. "That's a good boy."
"I'm sorry
doctor," Emma said giving empathy.
He shakes his head.
"It's quite alright."
Logan
returns with Ghost by his side and sits back down.
Ghost leaps up on the couch
and he rests his body on the other side of Emma, nuzzling her.
She reaches over
and coos him as she pets him.
"So, I
got some ground rules," Logan said, "No one leaves unless necessary and stay quiet."
He locks
eyes with the doctor.
"I don't know you like Emma does and I'm not saying
you're a bad person but I'm going to make one thing clear, you try and steal
anything and take off, I'll have the dog track you and then you'll be his new
favorite chew toy. We Clear?"
Caldwell
ponders for a moment.
He leans forward from the chair and offers his hand to
Logan.
"Crystal."
Logan
reaches over and takes Caldwell hand, and they shake.
"We take
shifts keeping watch. And no one! No one opens the door for anyone. Got
it?"
Emma and
Caldwell nodded grimly.
"Then
let's eat. We have a long night and a busy day tomorrow."
They raided
the pantry, rationing food and water.
The meal that followed was silent, the
weight of what they had seen pressing down on them.
No one spoke.
Hours later,
Logan sat at the kitchen table, adjusting the dials on the HAM radio.
Static
crackled before a voice finally broke through.
"—can
hear me, check in. This is Rover. Come in."
Logan
pressed the transmitter.
"This is Bear. I read you. What's the
situation?"
Mark's voice
was low, tense.
"It's bad. The government's losing control. National
Guard's being overrun. Cities are falling. Did you manage to leave Birmingham?"
"Negative.
We're holding up here at home. Had a hell of a day."
"You can say
that again. If you have your place safe then stay put until you can gather your
bearings. But I would consider getting out from there asap. This isn't going to
blow over."
Logan exhaled.
"Figure as much. We also got a doctor with us. He might turn out to be useful
to have him along."
"Good. Stay
frosty. We check in tomorrow. Rover out."
Logan set
the radio aside, rubbing his hand down his face.
Footsteps sounded behind him.
He turned to see Emma standing, arms wrapped around herself.
"Mark?"
she asked softly.
He nodded.
"Yeah. He said it's all over the place and it's not getting better."
She
hesitated, then stepped forward, and sits in his lap sinking into his arms as
Logan embraces her.
"I keep thinking about those people. About the ones we
left behind."
Logan
tightened his hold on her.
"We did what we had to. For us. For the
baby."
Emma buried
her face against his chest.
"I don't know if I can bring a child into
this."
Logan gently
grabs her chin, tilting it up to meet his gaze. "We'll make it. I swear to
you, Emma. I won't let anything happen to you or our baby."
She searched
his eyes, then slowly nodded.
"Promise me."
"I promise."
She let out
a shaky breath and held onto him like he was the only thing keeping her
tethered to reality.
He pressed a kiss to her temple, the weight of his words
settling deep in his chest.
As Logan sat
in the dim glow of the living room, later that night, rifle across his lap, his
thumb tracing over the safety.
The weight of exhaustion pulled at him, but his
mind refused to rest.
Ghost lay at his feet, ears twitching, ever vigilant.
His thoughts
of what transpired today made the silence of the house reminded him of another
night, another time when the air was thick with death.
…
Syria.
Four years ago.
The compound
had gone quiet, but Logan knew better. Silence wasn't safety, it was the prelude
to violence.
He pressed his back against a crumbling wall, rifle braced against
his shoulder, scanning the night through his NVGs.
His unit had been sent in
for a high-value target, but the op had gone sideways the moment they breached
the main building.
Ghost was at
his side, a shadow in the darkness, trained for moments like this.
His coat,
normally jet black, was covered in dust and grime, blending him into the ruins.
His vest bore patches of reinforced Kevlar, the word "k-9"
stitched across his side.
Logan had
trained with Ghost since he was a puppy before their first combat deployment
together.
From the very beginning, Ghost had been different, smarter, faster,
more aggressive in the field but controlled under command.
Unlike standard
military working dogs, Ghost wasn't just trained for attack.
He could detect
enemy ambushes, track targets, and most critically, sniff out explosives before
they could detonate.
"Delta 5, we've got movement. Eight hostiles. Three o'clock."
Logan
flicked his safety off.
"Copy. Ghost, seek."
The German
Shepherd bolted ahead without hesitation, disappearing into the shadows of the
alley.
Logan followed, keeping low, his heartbeat steady.
A muffled
yelp, then a guttural scream.
By the time
Logan turned the corner, one of the enemy soldiers was already down, his throat
torn open, his rifle discarded in the sand. Ghost stood over him, teeth bared, blood
dripping from them.
Two more men
rushed into the alley, but Ghost was faster. With practiced precision, he
lunged at the closest one, his jaws clamping down on the man's forearm,
crushing bone through muscle.
The man shrieked, trying to shake Ghost off, but
the k-9 was relentless, twisting his head violently to bring the soldier down.
Logan took
down the second attacker with two quick shots to the chest, his rifle barely
making a sound with the suppressor attached.
Another burst of movement, a third
soldier emerging from a side door, weapon raised, Logan fired first, the bullet
snapping into the man's skull before he could pull the trigger.
More voices
in the dark.
Foreign shouts.
Heavy boots pounding against the sand.
"They're
flanking from the north!"
Logan
grabbed Ghost's vest and pulled him behind cover.
The shepherd growled but
obeyed, his training overriding instinct.
Ghost's
training ran deep.
Unlike most military k-9s, he had undergone extensive
multi-role training.
He could detect IEDs, mines, and hidden explosives, often
alerting Logan to danger before his team even realized it was there.
The dog
had saved them more times than Logan could count.
Logan took a
breath, glancing at Ghost.
"Find danger."
Ghost's ears
twitched and sniffed the ground and air around them, and within seconds, his
stance changed.
His head snapped toward a pile of rubble. Ghost runs to it and
sniffs it again, his muscles tense and Ghost sits down and looks back at Logan.
Logan
muttered a curse under his breath.
Ghost had
found something.
"Good boy.
Heel."
Ghost runs
back over and protectively stands by Logan.
"Delta 6,
they've got explosives planted, Ghost just flagged a device. We need to move.
Now."
But before Mark
and the other squad could reposition, the night exploded into gunfire.
Logan barely
had time to react before bullets slammed into the walls around them.
Ghost
moved on instinct, staying low, navigating the chaos with trained precision.
Logan fired back, dropping one, then another.
Ghost lunged again, his powerful
frame slamming into a soldier's legs, dragging him down before Logan put a
bullet through his skull.
The mission
had been to eliminate a high-value target. Now, it was about finding the target
as quickly as possible and surviving.
…
A sharp
growl from Ghost snapped Logan back to reality.
Logan tensed, gripping his
rifle.
Ghost let out another low growl.
As Logan
looked out at the dead and silent neighborhood beyond his window, he realized
Mark had been right.
Something
was out there.
And it was
hunting them…