The last floor of the building had long since stopped feeling like an office.
Desks and other furniture had been dragged from their places and pushed together into an uneven barricade at the door leading into the stairwell.
Inside the air felt stale.
It carried the faint smell of dust and sweat that kept lingering, impossible to get rid of even with several windows open. Every breath reminded them how long they had been there.
People kept their distance from one another.
Christina once a reporter, sat near the edge of the room, a notebook resting uselessly in her lap. She hadn't written anything in days. There was nothing new to write, just the same thoughts, the same worries, repeating over and over.
Across the room, Mike stood near one of the windows, looking at the streets filled with shambling figures. He didn't say anything, just watched.
A pitched voice broke the silence.
"That's it?"
A blonde women in a disheveled business attire asked, her voice cut through the room, sharp and immediate.
The person she was addressing, a man wearing black pants and a stained collared dress shirt, didn't look up at first, crouched near one of the supply bags.
"That's what's left, Karen" he said flatly.
Karen stood up. "That's not what I asked."
Some of the people were startled by the sudden commotion.
Christina glanced up.
Derek sighed, like this was already a waste of time. "It's what we have. Take it or leave it."
Karen took a step forward. "There was more yesterday."
Mike turned slightly from the window.
Derek finally looked at her. "Yeah. Yesterday."
Karen's eyes narrowed. "So where did it go?"
A few heads turned as the two began to argue.
A young woman nearby shifted where she sat, watching the exchange carefully.
Derek stood up now, slow, deliberate. "We've been eating, Karen. That's usually how food disappears."
A couple of quiet snorts came from the back.
Karen didn't smile.
"No," she said, shaking her head slightly. "No, this isn't just that."
She gestured toward the bag.
"We rationed that. We all agreed."
Derek's expression hardened just a fraction. "And?"
"And now it's less."
The tension in the room tightened.
Christina felt it immediately, the familiar shift. The one that had become more common over the past weeks.
Mike stepped away from the window.
"How much is missing?" he asked, calm, direct.
Karen didn't take her eyes off Derek. "Enough."
"That doesn't answer the question."
Karen hesitated, then pointed.
"Ask him."
Now everyone was looking at Derek.
He let out a short breath through his nose. "You're serious right now?"
"Yes," Karen snapped. "I am."
The young woman stood up slowly. "Maybe we should just—"
"Stay out of it, Elena " Derek cut in, not even looking at her.
The way Derek reacted didn't help the situation very much, with many giving him unapproving looks.
Christina shifted forward slightly. "We can just count it again. Make sure—"
"I already did that," Karen said quickly.
Derek gave a small, humorless laugh. "Of course you did."
Karen stepped closer now.
"Did you take more?"
The room stilled at the accusatio made by Karen.
Derek stared at her for a second, then shook his head slightly.
"This is ridiculous."
"Did. You. Take. Them?" she pressed.
Derek frowned, not liking how he was spoke to.
"Watch it."
"Or what?" Karen retorted.
A few people shifted uncomfortably. Someone in the back muttered something under their breath.
Mike moved a step closer.
"Enough," he said.
But of no use as neither of them were listening.
Karen's voice rose. "We all agreed on portions. You don't get to just decide—"
"I didn't decide anything," Derek snapped back. "Maybe if people stopped counting every bite—"
"Because there's barely anything left!"
Her voice cracked on the last word.
Silence, fell over the room for several seconds.
Then Derek stepped forward.
"Yeah," he said, quieter now, but sharper. "There isn't."
The two of them were only a few feet apart now.
Elena looked between them, tension written across her face. "This isn't helping—"
"No one asked you," Derek shot back.
"Stop," Christina said, more firmly this time.
But they didn't pay her any attention.
Karen shook her head, almost laughing now, but there was no humor in it.
"This is exactly what I'm talking about. You think you can just take what you want and no one's going to—"
"I didn't take anything!"
"Then where did it go?"
"I don't know!"
"Well, that's convenient!"
The argument had been going on for minutes now.
Voices rising. Overlapping. Others starting to join in, some siding with Karen, others telling her to drop it, a few just trying to be heard.
With the ground argument, the room felt smaller.
Mike's jaw tightened. He glanced toward the door to the stairwell, then back.
"We need to be quiet, you'll attract the infected, " he said.
His pleading feel on deaf ears as no one was listening anymore.
Karen stepped even closer to Derek, her voice low but shaking. "You're lying."
Derek's expression changed. Not much, but it looked like he was about to snap.
"Say that again," he said.
Christina stood up quickly. "Hey—"
"Back off," Derek warned.
"Or what?" Karen shot back immediately.
There was silence again. The kind that was right before something was about to happen.
And then, before the argument could escalate any further, something could be heard from outside.
It tore through the silence without warning.
A sudden burst of distorted guitar, loud enough for everyone to hear.
The argument died instantly.
For a second, no one moved.
"What the hell—"
The sound came again, clearer this time. Rhythm. Drums. It was unmistakable.
Music.
Christina turned toward the windows.
"…Is that—?"
Mike was already at the nearest window, opening it to hear and see better with the others following behind.
Everyone was drawn toward the windows, the argument forgotten as quickly as it had started.
Outside, the city stretched out beneath them.
The music echoed between buildings, distorted but unmistakable as it carried through the streets.
"There's no way…" someone whispered.
Christina stepped closer to the glass, eyes scanning the distance.
"That's music."
Derek frowned. "Yeah, no kidding."
"Who the hell is playing music?" Elena asked, her voice tight.
Karen shook her head immediately. "That's stupid. That will just attract more of them."
"Maybe that's the point," someone else said.
Mike didn't answer. He was watching the streets.
In the streets below, walkers began to change direction, slowly at first, then more deliberately, drawn toward the source of the sound.
"They're reacting," Christina said quietly.
Karen let out a short, disbelieving laugh. "Great. That's just great. Whoever's doing that is pulling every freak in the city out."
"Or pulling them away," Elena countered quickly.
Karen looked at her. "Away from what?"
"The building," Elena said. "If they're moving toward the sound—"
Mike spoke, cutting through both of them.
"Look."
Down below, something moved through the streets.
There were two Humvees, one of them moved onto the overpass, with the other positioning itself beneath it.
For a moment, no one spoke.
"…No way," Derek muttered, breaking the silence.
Christina leaned closer to the glass, her breath catching slightly.
"Those are soldiers."
At that statement, more of them drifted closer, drawn in by what was unfolding below. The music still echoed faintly through the city, bouncing between buildings in a distorted rhythm, but it had already become secondary. Their attention had shifted entirely to the movement on the overpass.
Figures were emerging from the vehicles.
Christina narrowed her eyes, pressing slightly closer to the glass as she tried to make out details through the distance and glare. "They're getting out…"
Mike adjusted his position just enough to improve his angle. "Yeah."
Below, the soldiers moved with purpose.
One group spread out along the top of the overpass, stopping at measured intervals. They crouched, gestured to one another, moved again, checking sections of the structure in a way that was too deliberate to be random. There was no hesitation in their movements.
They knew exactly what they were doing.
"What are they doing?" someone asked, their voice quieter, edged with uncertainty.
No one answered immediately.
Another group moved beneath the overpass, partially obscured by the concrete above. Even so, enough could be seen, soldiers stopping at the base of the pillars, inspecting them, placing equipment against the structure.
Karen frowned, her expression tightening. "I can't see what they're doing."
"They don't seem to be just passing through," Derek added, his gaze fixed downward.
Christina leaned in slightly, her voice lowering as realization began to settle in. "They're setting something up…"
Mike didn't respond right away. His eyes remained locked on the activity below, tracking the movements of the team working at the pillars. There was a pattern to it, a coordination that made his expression tighten almost imperceptibly.
" They're planning something," he said finally.
A few people glanced toward him.
"What does that mean?" Elena asked.
Before he could answer, something else drew their attention again.
More vehicles arrived.
Trucks and buses rolled into view from different directions, their movement steady and controlled. Tthey positioned themselves with intent, pulling into place beneath and around the overpass.
"…That doesn't look like an evacuation," Derek said, more to himself than anyone else.
Karen shook her head slowly. "No. It doesn't."
The vehicles settled into position, angled in ways that didn't make immediate sense, but nothing about it felt random. It was too organized, too precise.
Christina felt a quiet unease settle in her chest.
"They're setting something up," she repeated, softer now.
No one argued. As they were all seeing the same thing.
Whatever was happening below, it wasn't the rescue operation they were hoping for.
Silence settled over the group again, filled with unspoken questions.
Then Elena spoke.
"We need to get their attention."
Several heads turned toward her.
Karen frowned. "From up here?"
"I doubt they could see us from up here," Elena said, gesturing toward the window. "They will leave without even knowing we're here—"
"They're not leaving yet," Derek cut in.
"That doesn't mean they won't," she shot back.
Christina looked between them, then back toward the scene outside.
"If they're military… they might not even know there are survivors in the city."
That possibility shifted the mood.
Mike stepped back from the window, his expression unreadable.
"They won't be looking for us," he said.
"Then we make them look," Elena replied.
Karen crossed her arms, skepticism clear on her face. "And how exactly are we supposed to do that?"
Christina hesitated only briefly before answering.
"The roof."
The word drew immediate attention.
"The roof gives us visibility," she continued. "If we signal from there, something they can actually see—"
"A flare," someone from the back of the room said.
That caught everyone's attention at once.
Derek turned toward the voice. "You have one?"
The man nodded. "In the emergency kit, there's a flare gun."
Mike imidietly spoke.
"The stairwell."
Eyes shifted toward the barricaded door almost instinctively.
Karen's expression tightened. "We blocked it."
"Yeah," Derek said evenly. "Because there were those things out there."
No one needed clarification.
The blood, the gore. The sounds that hadn't been human anymore.
Elena swallowed. "It's been… weeks."
Mike shook his head slightly. "Doesn't matter. If even one's still out there, that's enough."
Derek exhaled slowly, tension visible in the movement. "So what, we just stay here and hope they notice us?"
Christina looked back at the window, at the soldiers continuing their work with focused precision.
"They won't be here for long," she said quietly.
That settled it.
Mike held their gaze for a moment longer, then gave a small, reluctant nod.
"We do it carefully."
No one argued, knowing that this was their only chance of surviving.
They moved toward the barricaded stairwell door.
The furniture they had dragged into place weeks ago still stood packed tightly together.
Now they had to undo it.
For a moment, no one touched anything.
Then Derek stepped forward.
"Slow," Mike said immediately. "Let's not make any sudden noise."
Derek nodded once and reached for the nearest desk, with others stepping in to help.
As they pulled, the wood scraped against the floor with a low, drawn-out sound that seemed far louder than it should have been.
Everyone stopped and listened, but no sound came from the other side of the door.
"Keep going," Mike said quietly.
Piece by piece, they began to dismantle the barricade.
Each movement was deliberate. Controlled. Every scrape followed by a pause, every shift of weight met with stillness as they listened for any sign of movement beyond the door.
Christina moved slightly back, her eyes fixed on the entrance as it slowly began to reappear from behind the layers of furniture. The flare gun rested in her hands now, her grip tightening around it without realizing.
··········
From the rooftop, the shift was impossible to miss.
The drones had turned, their path now leading back toward the overpasses, and everything below responded accordingly.
Andrew stood at the edge, binoculars raised, tracking the movement as it unfolded across the city grid.
"They're bringing them back," Price said beside him, his gaze fixed on the streets below.
Andrew gave a small nod without lowering the binoculars. "Right where we want them."
The drones came into view moments later, distant at first, then clearer as they moved between the buildings. Their modified frames held steady in the air, speakers blasting sound down into the streets, the rhythm echoing and rebounding off glass and concrete alike.
A new track had taken over.
🎶 .....
Beggin' you to touch and go
Highway to the danger zone
Ride into the danger zone. 🎶
The sound carried far.
And the effect was immediate.
Behind the drones, the streets were no longer just occupied—they were overflowing.
Walkers poured out from every direction, pulled forward by the relentless pull of the music. What had once been separate groups had merged into something massive. They filled entire streets, spilled over sidewalks, pressed between abandoned vehicles, their numbers compounding with every intersection they crossed.
From this height, it looked more like a flood or like a tide.
A slow, relentless flood pushing forward through the city.
Soap leaned slightly over the edge, squinting as he tried to take it all in. Giving a whistle, he said. "That's… a lot more than we started with."
Gaz exhaled under his breath, shaking his head. "They've dragged half the city with them."
Ghost simply looked down, his expression unrideable behind his mask.
Andrew's focus remained on the flow, tracking how the mass behaved, how it shifted and compressed as it followed the drones.
"They're moving fast," one of the operators said from behind them.
That much was visible even without the screens.
The walkers didn't move faster in any clean sense, but more direct. They stumbled forward with intent, pushing into one another, falling and rising again as the pressure from behind forced them onward.
The drones passed the Fox News building.
For a brief moment, they were almost close enough that the sound hit with full force, vibrating through the structure beneath their feet. The music surged upward, louder, sharper, filling the air around them.
Below, the scale of it became undeniable.
Thousands of walkers.
The streets beneath the building were packed with them, the mass stretching far beyond what could be seen at a glance. Every direction the eye followed led to more movement, more bodies pressing forward, all drawn along the same invisible path.
Price's gaze followed the flow as it moved past their position. "That's a hell of a pull." He said, taking a puff from his cigar.
Andrew's eyes remained fixed on the scene. "And they're still coming."
The drones didn't slow, continuing forward, guiding the mass back toward the overpasses, maintaining just enough distance to keep the walkers engaged without breaking their focus.
Behind them, the operators worked in silence, making small, precise adjustments.
"Approaching target zone," one of them said.
The overpasses came back into view.
From above, nothing about them suggested what had been prepared.
But the space beneath them was about to change.
The first wave of walkers spilled into it moments later.
Drawn forward by the sound, they funneled naturally beneath the overpass, pressing inward as the drones slowed just enough to hold their attention in place.
More and more followed.
🎶 You'll never say hello to you
Until you get it on the red line overload
You'll never know what you can do
Until you get it up as high as you can go. 🎶
Within seconds, the space began to fill.
Within a minute or two, it became crowded.
Within a few more, it was packed.
The walkers pressed into one another, bodies colliding, stumbling, some not rising again as the mass behind them continued to push forward. There was no space left between them, only movement.
Soap watched it build, his expression tightening slightly. "They're stacking up."
"Good, that's what we want," Price said quietly.
The second drone mirrored the same movement on the opposite side, pulling another stream of walkers beneath the second overpass. The pattern held perfectly, with two separate flows feeding into two confined spaces.
The two kill zones were prepared, and both were filling rapidly.
Andrew raised the binoculars again, scanning the density, judging the spread, the pressure points forming within the mass.
"Keep them there," he said.
"Copy," came the response.
The drones adjusted position slightly, hovering just ahead of the densest clusters, maintaining the pull without drawing them forward. The music continued to blast downward, relentless, inescapable.
🎶..... Gonna take it right into the danger zone
Highway to the danger zone
Ride into the danger zone
Highway to the danger zone
Gonna take it right into the danger zone. 🎶
The sound had them completely.
Every head tilted toward it. Every movement driven by it.
For several long moments, nothing changed.
There was nowhere else for them to go.
Andrew lowered the binoculars.
"That's enough, you can stop now."
The operators reacted immediately. Cutting the music just as it was reaching it end.
At the same time, both drones lifted, rising sharply upward, pulling away from the overpasses and accelerating into the open air. Within seconds, they were climbing higher, moving farther out, towards the rooftop.
Below, the walkers lingered where they were, packed tightly beneath the overpasses, their momentum stalled, their attention fractured now that the source had vanished.
While some shifted, most remained in place, trapped within the space they had been drawn into.
From the rooftop, the result was clear.
Thousands of walkers under the overpasses, with manyore in the streets, pushing against eachother.
Price watched the scene for a moment longer before speaking.
"Well then…"
Andrew's gaze remained fixed on the overpasses for few more moments before he faced Price.
"Now we finish it."
Price reached for his radio, bringing it up smoothly as his gaze returned to the overpasses.
"Bravo Six to Demolition One," he said, his voice calm, steady. "All targets are in position. You are cleared to detonate. How copy?"
A short burst of static followed.
Then a response came through.
"Demolition One to Bravo Six, copy loud and clear," came the response. "All charges set. Initiating detonation."
Price lowered the radio slightly, his eyes never leaving the structures in the distance.
From the rooftop, everything seemed still.
A few streets away, behind cover and at a safe distance, the demolition team stood in position.
The lead specialist held the detonator in both hands, his thumb resting just above the trigger. Around him, the rest of the team had taken cover behind their vehicles, eyes fixed in the direction of the overpasses.
They had done their part.
Now it came down to timing.
The specialist exhaled slowly, steadying himself, then pressed down.
For a fraction of a second nothing happened.
Then the world broke.
The first detonation erupted from beneath the overpass, a violent burst of force that tore into the supporting structure. The blast cracked through concrete and steel, a deep, concussive thunder that rolled outward across the city.
A second explosion followed almost instantly, then another—charges triggering in sequence along the weakened points.
From the rooftop, the effect was immediate.
The overpass didn't simply collapse—it crumbled.
The central support gave way first, concrete fracturing under the force as the structure above it shifted violently. Cracks spread in jagged lines across the surface, racing outward faster than the eye could follow.
Then gravity took hold.
The entire span dropped.
Massive sections of concrete and steel tore free and came crashing down into the space below.
The sound was overwhelming.
A deafening roar of collapsing structure, shattering debris, and impact as thousands of tons of material slammed into the mass beneath it.
The walkers had no way to react.
They were crushed instantly—buried under collapsing slabs of concrete, their bodies pinned and broken beneath the weight. The tightly packed mass worked against them, there was no space to move, no way to escape as the structure came down.
Steel supports twisted and snapped, some shearing loose entirely.
Jagged lengths of rebar and metal supports drove downward with the falling debris, impaling anything caught beneath them. Limbs were torn apart, bodies forced into the ground, the entire space beneath the overpass becoming a chaotic mix of rubble and destruction.
The second overpass followed almost instantly after.
Another chain of detonations ripped through its foundation, the blasts tearing into the supports with the same calculated precision. The structure shuddered, cracked, then collapsed in on itself.
Dust and debris exploded outward from both sites, thick clouds rising into the air, swallowing the streets below in a dense, choking haze.
The sound rolled on, echoing through the city long after the structures had fallen.
From the rooftop, the view was partially obscured now, the overpasses reduced to shattered remains beneath a rising wall of dust.
But the result was undeniable.
While there still was a very large amount of walkers left, they still managed to eliminate several thousands walkers.
Price watched the settling clouds, lowering the radio slowly.
"…It went well," he muttered.
Andrew exhaled and gave a small smile.
Turning to Price he said.
" Looks like we're good to go for the next phase."