Far beyond the forest, where even the military searchlights could no longer reach, a lone infected stood motionless among the trees.
Beneath its feet, dark roots slowly spread across the ground, pulsing faintly with each beat as they crawled farther and farther through the soil, stretching toward the distant safe zone.
Across the battlefield, the corpses of infected that had fallen outside the walls were beginning to change.
Dark liquid slowly seeped from their bodies and soaked into the ground, while their flesh seemed to soften and merge with the earth. From beneath the corpses, thin strands of dark, flesh-like roots began spreading outward, connecting one body to another as they slowly extended through the forest.
At the center of it all, the lone infected remained completely still. It was almost as if the creature itself was the heart of the growing network.
Then its closed eyes slowly opened as pure darkness filled them, deeper than the night surrounding the forest.
.....
