Like animals.
The Truckstop at Route 89 was a killing floor. Bodies everywhere. Truckers still in their rigs, slumped over steering wheels with their throats opened. The diner cook face-down on the griddle, skin blackened and reeking. And the others, or should I say…the infected…waiting inside like it was an ambush. Like they KNEW I was coming.
They attacked without warning. Without words. Just animal rage and that SMILE. That goddamn smile.
I fought my way through. The shotgun proved its worth. At close range, nothing stops a man like twelve-gauge buckshot. The recoil became rhythm. Pump. Fire. Pump. Fire. Bodies dropping. Spent shells clinking on linoleum.
The killing is getting easier. That's what scares me. The first one at my house—I hesitated. Finger on the trigger, mind screaming at me that this was still a person, still human, still deserving of mercy. But now? Now I see them coming and I just... act. Muscle memory. Training I never had kicks in. Point. Shoot. Move. Next target.
Is this what war is like? This numbness? This efficiency?
Found a hunting rifle in one of the trucks. Scoped. .308 caliber. Also grabbed boxes of ammunition for all my weapons. The 9mm. The shotgun. Now the rifle. I'm becoming an arsenal. A one-man army.
And that voice. Still there. Between the gunshots. In the silence.
Good. Very good. You're learning. You're becoming what you need to be.
What I need you to be.
In the truck stop bathroom, I splash water on my face. Look in the mirror. For just a moment, I see something behind me. A silhouette. Impossibly tall. Watching. When I spin around...nothing. Turn back to the mirror—it's still there. Behind me. Always behind me.
I punch the mirror. Glass shatters. My knuckles bleed.
Better.
Made it to the Sheriff's station by noon. That's when I knew. That's when any remaining hope died in my chest like a snuffed candle.
The Sheriff...THE SHERIFF. Badge still pinned to his chest, foam at his mouth, coming at me with that dead-eyed stare and a fire axe raised above his head. No words. No warning. Just animal rage wrapped in a uniform.
I put three rounds in him before he went down. The rifle. Center mass. Clean shots through the window before I even entered. He kept crawling. Kept reaching for me with one hand, the other dragging the axe behind him, scraping sparks on the concrete floor.
I put the fourth round through his head.
His name was Patterson. Sheriff Gary Patterson. I voted for him. Back when I first moved here, when I still thought I could be part of this community. He seemed like a good man. Fair. Honest.
Now he's meat cooling on a concrete floor.
Everyone here is infected with something. Something in the air, the water—I don't know. Could be a chemical leak. Biological agent. Some Cold War nightmares the government buried out here and forgot about. There's an Air Force Base north of town. Gila Flats. Been there since the fifties. Maybe they were testing something. Maybe it got loose.
Found a stash of weapons in the Sheriff's office. More shotgun shells. A machine gun—MAC-10, fully automatic—probably confiscated from some drug dealer. Felt wrong taking it. Felt necessary. Also found grenades. Military issue. How did a small-town Sheriff get military grenades?
Also found his journal. Last entry dated three weeks ago: "Can't sleep. Keep hearing voices. Town feels wrong. Need to investigate the water supply. Something whispers to me at night. Tells me things. Terrible things."
The page ends there. The rest is torn out.
I flip back through earlier entries. Normal police work. Traffic stops. Noise complaints. Then, about two months ago, a change in his handwriting. Gets shakier. More erratic.
One entry dated six weeks back: "Saw something in the mirror today. Not my reflection. Something behind me. Black hole eyes. Staring. Blinked and it was gone. Am I going insane?"
My blood runs cold.
I've seen it too. Haven't I? In windows. In puddles. In the rearview mirror of the car. Something watching. Something that isn't quite there.
Something that whispers.
Don't think about it. Focus on the mission. Focus on survival.
They're coming. They're always coming.
I'm trying not to think about it. Because if it's from the Base, if the military is compromised, if the people who are SUPPOSED to have the answers are already dead or turned or worse...
That base may turn out to be my last hope. Or my tomb.
Through the hovels and shacks where the infected gather. I can hear them at night. Singing. Chanting. Words I don't understand in a language that shouldn't exist.
God help me.
Or whoever's listening.