The sun had barely begun its slow climb when Aiden stirred from his light, dreamless sleep. The air was cool and still, a thin mist rolling off the cracked concrete of the roadside rest stop. Aiden sat up from his sleeping mat beneath the overturned picnic shelter, rubbing his face with calloused hands, eyes bloodshot but sharp.
Around him, the camp began to stir.
Dax was already awake, crouched over the fire barrel, feeding it the last scraps of dried pine and cardboard. The flames licked up lazily, just enough to boil water for instant coffee and heat yesterday's canned stew.
Glenn, with a fresh bandage on his grazed arm, was trying to move without showing pain. He hissed under his breath as he buckled his belt and slung on his backpack. Silva was the last to rise—her rifle always within reach, eyes constantly scanning the horizon, even as she yawned behind her hand.
No one spoke much that morning.
They all felt it—the tension, the hangover of adrenaline and bloodshed. The ambush had reminded them just how thin the line between survival and death had become. The notebook's grim testimony still weighed on their minds.
Aiden took one last glance at the ashes where the bodies had burned. Only bones remained now, blackened and brittle, as silent as the fate they had sealed for themselves. He tightened the strap on his vest and gestured toward the truck.
"Let's move. We've got ground to cover."
The truck groaned as it started up, the diesel engine coughing to life with a familiar rattle. Aiden was behind the wheel, Glenn riding shotgun with the radio on his lap, Dax and Silva in the back with the supplies. They had refueled from one of their reserve drums before dawn. No wasting fuel, no unnecessary stops. It was time to link up with the other half of their crew—the group that had branched off days ago to scout a separate area north of the city.
The road ahead was lined with bent street signs and half-destroyed billboards. Trees pushed through cracked pavement like nature itself was reclaiming the highway. Abandoned cars littered the shoulder, most stripped to their frames. The wind howled through broken windows and doorless chassis. A single raven cawed above them, circling, watching.
Aiden kept the truck steady, alert. Every curve of the road was a potential ambush. Every mile carried echoes of the city they had just escaped.
"Still nothing
New Faces in Familiar Shadows
As the door to the grocery store swung shut behind Aiden, sealing out the wind and dust of the ruined street, he felt a sudden shift in the room. It wasn't just the relief of safety, or the distant hum of the solar battery-powered lights—they weren't alone.
In the makeshift base built inside the gutted store, Bravo Team was accounted for… but there were more people here than he remembered.
He counted them quickly. Reed, Nora, and Vasquez—his known team. All alive, armed, and wary.
But behind them, in the old bakery section of the store, stood three unfamiliar figures.
Aiden's hand hovered near his sidearm, eyes narrowing. Dax mirrored the motion silently, shifting his rifle just enough to look casual, but ready. Glenn, wounded but alert, held back with Silva, who had already clocked the newcomers and was watching them like a hawk.
Reed noticed the tension and stepped forward quickly.
"They're not hostiles," he said, raising both hands. "It's okay. They came two days ago—walked right up to the barricade, hands raised, no weapons drawn. They've been helping us patch leaks and rig extra defense."
Aiden gave a slow nod, but didn't relax. "And you trust them?"
"I trust their timing less than I trust their words," Reed admitted, "but they haven't made a wrong move. Saved Vasquez's life yesterday during a supply run, too."
"Alright," Aiden said carefully. "Introduce them."
The trio stepped forward, quiet but not timid.
The first was a tall woman with auburn hair tied in a tight braid. Her face was sunburned, streaked with grime, but her stance was military. Trained. She wore the remnants of a National Guard uniform beneath a scavenged coat.
"Name's Sam Harker," she said, voice clear and no-nonsense. "Lieutenant, 121st Ohio National Guard. Or I was—before everything fell apart. Been on foot since Fort Hooper fell six months ago."
Aiden gave a curt nod. "You military still?"
"No chain of command left," Sam replied. "Just trying to stay human. Saw your people holding down a position, decided it was better than wandering into Cleveland's corpse pits."
Beside her was a man of medium height, wiry, with a patchy beard and wire-rimmed glasses. His clothes were civilian, but he carried himself like someone used to danger.
"I'm Eli Rourke," he said. "Used to be a forensic tech. Now I patch wounds and rig traps. Followed Sam out of a bad situation up north—some culty settlement trying to resurrect the old world with fire and blood."
"That sounds like a story," Glenn muttered.
Eli gave a weary smirk. "It's not one I like telling twice."
The third was a boy. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. Thin, nervous, hands wrapped around the sling of a bolt-action rifle that looked too big for him. His hoodie was torn and stained, and a hastily stitched patch on his sleeve showed a red X over a skull.
"I'm Micah," he said, almost too soft to hear. "I was with them for a while. The ones who hit places like this. I left when I saw what they were."
Silva frowned. "Bandits?"
"Worse," Micah said. "They call themselves the Cleansed. Think the virus is divine punishment. They don't kill to survive. They kill to… please it."
A heavy silence filled the room.
Aiden broke it. "You saw any of them near this town?"
Micah nodded. A couple of days back. Far side of the rail line. Watching. Didn't approach. Just… watched."
Aiden looked at Reed. "And you didn't think to move?"
"We debated it. Wanted to wait for you."
Aiden paced a few steps, then stopped in front of the newcomers. "You're here now. You help, you eat. You lie, you leave. No third chance. Understood?"
Sam nodded without hesitation. Eli gave a solemn "Understood." Micah only stared at the floor but whispered, "Yes, sir."
Strategic Talks
Later that evening, around a long wooden table pulled from the back room and surrounded by salvaged chairs, the full team met for a tactical session. The overhead lights flickered intermittently, but the solar battery hummed softly—enough juice left for an hour, maybe two.
Aiden stood at the head of the table, the bandit's notebook laid out before him, the crude map with red X's unfolded beside it.
"These guys weren't just scavengers," he said. "They were scouts. And these marks—some of them match routes we've taken. They've been watching survivor movements, including ours."
Eli leaned in, pointing to a red X east of Cleveland. "That's where their main camp might be. I saw it once—a whole parking garage retrofitted into a death maze. They lure people in, then trap them between walkers, they pen them up in cages."
Silva's jaw clenched. "You've seen that?"
Eli nodded. "Didn't stick around. That's where I found Micah. He helped me escape."
Micah looked like he wanted to disappear.
"Here's the bigger problem," Reed added, pulling another local map. "We've got three weeks of food, maybe four. Ammo's down. Solar panels are degrading. This place won't last."
"So what are you saying?" Dax asked. "We abandon it?"
"I'm saying we need a real safe zone," Aiden replied. "Permanent. Sustainable. We keep moving, we keep dying. But if we can find somewhere defensible, off-grid, and set up a real perimeter…"
Reed pointed to a mountain range further west. "There used to be an old NORAD fallback base out there. Just rumors. But if it's intact…"
"That's where we go," Aiden decided.
They spent the rest of the night prepping. The new arrivals were given shifts, packs, and assignments. Sam helped Silva reorganize weapons and gear. Eli and Dax worked on tuning the backup radios. Micah quietly sharpened his knife in the corner, saying nothing, but always listening.
Before sunrise, Aiden stood outside the store, overlooking the sleeping town of Lakefield. He didn't believe in omens, but the wind had changed. Something was coming.
Something worse than walkers. Worse than raiders.
The Cleansed. The silence of Cleveland. The ambushes.
He whispered into the dawn air, more to himself than anyone.
"We find that base… or we die trying."
And behind him, the lights flickered out.
Operation: Station Sweep
The sky was overcast, the clouds heavy and gray, casting a dull pall over the cracked concrete streets and rusted-out husks of abandoned cars. The wind carried a foul smell—stagnant water, rotting leaves, and something worse. Something undead.
The group approached the edge of the city on foot, having left the truck behind in a secluded alleyway, hidden beneath camouflage netting and scrap metal. Aiden led the way, crouched low behind a rusting sedan, his hand up to signal silence. Beside him, Silva watched through her rifle's scope. Glenn, arm mostly healed now, carried one of the long wooden spears they had fashioned from scavenged mop handles and metal rods. Dax had two makeshift shields strapped to his back—repurposed riot gear from a previous find.
Their target loomed ahead: a three-story police station, partially overgrown with ivy and vines. Its outer walls were scorched in places, its windows shattered, doors bent or ripped open. But the structure remained mostly intact—a potential goldmine of ammunition, tactical gear, communications equipment, and possibly even fuel or keys to local depots.
But it was not empty.
Through the broken glass and shattered frames, they could see shadows moving inside—slow, deliberate, undead.
Aiden knelt beside a low wall across from the entrance. "Estimate?" he whispered.
Silva scanned the building again. "First floor's packed. Second might be worse. Third... can't tell. Minimum twenty inside, maybe thirty."
"More than we can handle in close quarters," Aiden said. "We do this smart."
He pulled out a folded page from his pocket—a rough sketch of the station's front lot they'd drawn earlier after recon. "We make a funnel. Create a kill zone. One entry path."
"How do we draw them?" Glenn asked.
"With noise," Dax answered, a half-smile creeping across his face. "Like ringing the dinner bell."
Constructing the Kill Zone
They worked fast.
Aiden and Dax gathered debris from nearby streets, including shopping carts, metal shelving, and parts of overturned desks from a wrecked furniture store across the road. Glenn and Silva tied everything down with salvaged rope and rusted chains.
They constructed a narrow passage leading up to the main entrance of the station—a tight choke point, with towering debris walls on either side, herding anything that exited into a confined alley. Across this corridor, they built a crossbeam of iron rebar, sharpened wooden stakes mounted at shoulder and chest height, designed to impale or slow walkers.
Behind that was the main kill zone—an open square with vantage points on crates and low walls. Wooden spears and arrows were stacked in buckets. Aiden even positioned a stack of metal trays on one side, rigged to fall and clang if jostled—an alarm system if anything slipped through their blind spots.
"We lure them one floor at a time," Aiden ordered. "Don't rush. Don't break formation. Glenn—you're on arrow duty. Silva covers the left. Dax, you and I keep the spear corridor clean."
Glenn gave a firm nod. "We only hit the noise once?"
"Once," Aiden said. "No need to wake the whole block."
Drawing Out the Dead
Aiden walked to the front steps of the station and set down the trigger: an old emergency car siren they'd salvaged days ago. It had just enough charge for one good blast. He connected the loose wires, then sprinted back to cover behind the makeshift spear wall.
"Ready," Silva whispered.
"On you," Dax said, gripping his spear tightly.
Aiden raised three fingers.
Two.
One.
He triggered the siren.
The scream of the emergency alarm blared through the empty streets, a rising, howling wail of metal and warning that echoed through the buildings like a ghost from the old world.
It lasted ten seconds—just long enough.
Then silence.
Aiden waited. Eyes narrowed. Listening.
Then he heard it.
Shuffling. Moaning. Dragging feet. Bone scraping concrete.
The first walker emerged—its face a ruin of dried blood, skin sunken over its skull. Behind it, more came. Staggering, sniffing the air, jaws slack. Some wore the tattered remains of police uniforms, badges still pinned to rotted flesh. One still had a gun belt around its waist—empty, swinging with each step.
They funneled in perfectly.
Two by two, they shuffled down the alley, unable to escape the narrowed passage. The barriers worked like cattle drives, and when the first walker reached the kill zone—
Thunk!
Aiden drove his spear clean through its head, yanking it back with practiced ease. Glenn followed up with an arrow to the next one's eye. Dax caught the third across the skull with the reinforced riot shield, slamming it back into the others, then stabbing low.
Silva, perched slightly higher, fired only when necessary—her shots aimed, not wasted. The spears did most of the work.
The walkers kept coming.
Ten.
Then fifteen.
They jammed into each other, snarling and trying to crawl over the dead. One got stuck halfway, impaled on the rebar, twitching like a meat puppet. Another tried climbing the pile, and Aiden finished it with a quick stab to the temple.
The air filled with the stench of death, old and fresh. Blood pooled in front of the barricades, soaking the ground.
Still, they came.
"Hold!" Aiden called, spotting one with riot gear—a bulletproof vest and helmet. It took three shots before it dropped, crumpling onto the pile of corpses.
Minutes felt like hours.
But eventually… the noise inside died.
Only moans outside now. Stragglers.
Silva gave the signal. "Clear inside—first floor's purged."
"Second?" Glenn asked.
"Still movement. Faint."
"We go in quietly," Aiden said. "Seal the front. Drag the bodies away. Reset."
Inside the Station
With the front entrance now sealed behind them and reinforced with a steel desk and chain, the group entered the building. The air was thick, musty, and heavy with decay. Old bulletin boards still bore wanted posters and local crime notices. A half-drunk coffee cup sat fossilized on a desk.
The main hallway had blood trails, bullet holes, and signs of old panic. Shell casings littered the ground. One walker lay trapped beneath a toppled vending machine, its arms still reaching.
Silva knifed it in the skull as they passed.
They worked room by room—clearing stairwells, sweeping side offices, breaching doors in silence.
By the time they reached the second floor, the fight had become personal.
The walkers here were quieter, tucked away in offices or hidden behind closed doors. One had hung itself by the neck—still animated, still twitching. Dax put it down without a word.
In the evidence room, they struck gold: three crates of non-lethal equipment, some old but functional riot armor, and a box of .40 caliber ammunition.
Locker rooms had unopened footlockers—some filled with uniforms, radios, handcuffs, expired MREs. They took it all.
The third floor was mostly administrative and quiet. One last walker, in a captain's uniform, came stumbling out of a corner office. It got three steps before Aiden buried a hatchet in its forehead.
The Cleanup and Reward
By dusk, the police station belonged to them.
The front kill zone had been dismantled, gear cleaned, and corpses dragged away and burned in a controlled pyre in the alley. The team washed their hands in rain barrels, sweat and blood rinsed from their skin, their breathing still heavy.
Inside, they barricaded the second floor and claimed the office space as a temporary outpost.
That night, they dined on warmed MREs in the squad room, candles flickering in the corners, the faint scent of gun oil and disinfectant in the air. Aiden stood at the window, staring down at the darkened city.
"Not bad," Dax said, stretching with a yawn. "Feels almost like we earned a break."
"We did," Glenn added. "But it won't last."
Aiden turned from the window and looked over the station, the gear they'd gathered, and the strength they'd gained.
"Let it last just for tonight," he said. "We'll move at dawn. But for now, this is ours."
[Author's Note:]Hello everyone, I just wanted to give you all a quick heads-up. I'll be away for a while—not because I'm giving up on the book, but because I have some very important career-related tests coming up. These require my full focus, so writing will need to be on pause for now.
I'm not exactly sure how long I'll be gone—maybe a month or two, possibly until November, or maybe sooner if things go well.
Thank you so much for your support and understanding. I promise I'll be back, and I'm looking forward to continuing the story with you all. Much love! ❤️