(Ethan)
We made it underground.
The tunnels stank of rust and mold, air wet and thick enough to choke on. We dragged benches and broken vending machines against the service door, metal screeching against tile like fingernails on bone. It wouldn't hold forever, but nothing did anymore.
Behind it, the dead pressed close. Their nails scraped metal in steady rhythm, patient as waves wearing down stone. The sound crawled into my bones and made a home there.
Becca sat with her back against the wall, her face gray, hair plastered to her cheeks with sweat and grime. Dr. Martinez checked her supplies, hands shaking despite the hard set of her mouth. Professional calm cracking at the edges.
Across from them, Linda Walsh huddled in the corner with her twins. Tommy clutched a stuffed bear missing an eye, the fur matted with dirt and worse. Emma buried her face in her mother's coat, small shoulders shaking. Linda whispered to them, voice low, weaving lies about safety, about morning, about rescue coming soon.
"The scary sounds will stop," she murmured, stroking Emma's hair. "Daddy's going to find us. The soldiers are coming to take us somewhere safe."
Her words were silk against the iron scrape of claws.
The children believed. Or wanted to.
I kept watch. My grip on the pipe never loosened, knuckles white, palms slick. The metal was warm from my hands, reassuring weight that said I could still break things if I needed to.
The scratching grew louder.
And then—something else.
A sound that didn't belong.
It slid under the door, woven between the moans like thread through fabric. At first I thought it was wind, broken glass shifting in the tunnels above. But it had rhythm. Pattern.
Among the scratching, something tapped. Deliberate. Three short, three long, three short.
SOS.
"What is it?" Becca asked, voice small.
"Nothing," I said. But my hands tightened on the pipe.
The tapping stopped. The mindless scratching resumed, but underneath it all, I could swear I heard something that sounded almost like—
Laughter.
Distorted. Warped, like an echo bouncing off tunnel walls. It rippled down my spine, wrong in ways I couldn't put words to. Too controlled. Too aware.
I strained to hear it again, but there was only the endless groaning of the horde, the scrape of dead fingernails on metal, the whispered prayers Linda spoke over her children's heads.
"Just the wind," I muttered, more to myself than anyone else.
But wind didn't tap in Morse code.
The minutes dragged like broken glass across skin. I forced myself to breathe slow, to count heartbeats, to think about anything except the hospital. Except Leo's scream cutting short. Except the way Aria's hand had twitched before—
Before what? Before she died? Before she turned? Before she became something else entirely?
The scratching continued. Mindless. Hungry. Normal.
Almost normal.
Because sometimes, just sometimes, it seemed to pause. Like something out there was listening. Thinking. Planning.
Dr. Martinez stood slowly, medical bag clutched against her chest. "We should rest in shifts," she said quietly. "Take turns keeping watch."
I nodded, but my eyes never left the barricade. The scratching had settled into a steady rhythm again, but I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being studied. Tested.
Like something intelligent was learning the patterns of our defense.
Linda had fallen asleep with the twins curled against her, exhaustion finally overcoming fear. Becca dozed fitfully, her head on her knees. Sarah made notes in a small journal, her pen scratching almost in time with the claws outside.
I stayed awake. Listening.
Waiting.
And in the darkest part of the night, when even the dead seemed to grow quiet, I could have sworn I heard something that sounded like my name.
But that was impossible.
The dead didn't remember names.
Did they?