---
The seventeenth floor was cleared. Six rooms yielded seven or eight Zombies, their corpses piled together in the hallway. Despite the earlier dispute with Josh, things had settled into an uneasy quiet. No one made conversation beyond what was necessary.
The group set off to clear the remaining three floors before evening. But when they stepped onto the eighteenth floor, they found nothing but silence.
The corridor stretched before them, empty. Bloodstains smeared the walls and pooled in dried puddles on the floor. Every door stood open—six of them—each frame dented and splintered as if something had forced its way out. Not a sound. Not a single Zombie in sight.
"What the hell…" Greg muttered, his voice barely above a whisper.
Nathan raised a hand, signaling everyone to stop. He scanned the hallway, his jaw tight. "Maybe the creatures moved to other floors. Stay sharp."
No one needed the reminder. The absence of enemies was worse than a direct attack. The silence felt wrong, heavy, like something was watching from the shadows.
Nathan turned to the group. "Pair up and check the rooms. Don't take risks. If you see anything unusual, call out immediately."
The teams dispersed. Josh signaled for Greg and Chen Jun to follow him toward the far end of the corridor. Before they moved, Josh glanced back at the stairwell door, his expression unreadable. He had been quiet since they left the fifth floor, his earlier eagerness replaced by something more calculating.
Not yet, he told himself. Let them clear the upper floors first. The Marcus situation can wait. Better to let them exhaust themselves up here.
He tightened his grip on the crowbar and followed his team into the nearest room.
---
Wade and Chen Jun paired up. Neither liked the other much, but they were both experienced enough to know complaining wouldn't help. They entered a room on the left side of the corridor, its door hanging off its hinges.
The room was destroyed. Furniture overturned, drawers pulled out and dumped on the floor, dark stains everywhere. At the center of the living room, a woman's body lay face‑down on the bloodied carpet.
Wade wrinkled his nose, stepping over a shattered vase. "It's just a body. Not a Zombie."
Chen Jun nodded, relaxing slightly. "Let's grab anything useful and get out. Leave the body."
"I'll check the bedroom," Wade said, already moving toward the hallway.
They split up. Chen Jun went to the kitchen, Wade to the bedroom.
Wade had his own priorities. Food and medicine were important, but he'd been watching. The way the world had changed—the Crimson Book, the Summons, the way Jin's power was growing—it wouldn't last forever. Eventually, order would come back, or something like it. And when it did, the people with valuable things would be the ones who came out ahead.
Gold. Jewelry. Things that held value before the cataclysm.
He'd been quietly pocketing anything he found. Rings, necklaces, anything small and easy to hide. This room belonged to a woman. Good chance there was something worth taking.
His eyes scanned the bedroom floor, then landed on the body in the living room again. The woman was lying face‑down, her neck slightly exposed.
A gold chain glinted against her skin.
Wade's lips curled. Sorry, lady. You don't need it anymore.
He glanced toward the kitchen. Chen Jun was rummaging through cabinets, his back turned. Quietly, Wade crept back into the living room, crouched beside the body, and reached for the necklace.
His fingers closed around the chain. He yanked—it snapped free, warm metal against his palm. Heavy. Worth a small fortune before all this.
He was still weighing it in his hand when a low growl sounded directly beneath him.
Wade's blood froze. He looked down.
The body was moving.
Dark tentacles erupted from beneath the woman's torso, thin and slick with black slime. Before Wade could react, they coiled around his wrist—tight, crushing, like a dozen leeches fused into one. The grip was impossibly strong. Pain shot up his arm.
"What the—" he choked.
The woman's body rose slowly, joints bending at wrong angles. Her skin was paper‑white, stretched tight over a network of bulging blue‑black veins. But her face—Wade's stomach lurched.
Her face was a ruin. Dozens of thumb‑sized holes riddled her cheeks, her forehead, her chin. Each hole oozed thick, bloody fluid, and from each one, more tentacles writhed, tasting the air. Her mouth gaped open, revealing rows of needle‑sharp teeth.
"Chen Jun!" Wade screamed. "Help! Help!"
The tentacles tightened. Wade's wrist bone creaked. His Summon lunged at the creature, clawing at its shoulders, but the tentacles wrapped around the Summon's throat and arms, holding it back.
Chen Jun burst out of the kitchen, saw the thing, and went pale. "Oh God—"
"Kill it!" Wade shrieked. "Kill it now!"
But the distance was too far. The creature was already pulling Wade toward its open mouth. He could smell it—rotten meat, spoiled blood. The tentacles coiled up his arm, dragging him closer.
The mouth closed on his throat.
Blood sprayed. Wade's screams turned to wet gurgles. His Summon, mid‑lunge, went limp and crumpled to the floor the moment Wade's life ended.
Chen Jun staggered backward, his mind blank with terror. His own Summon stood beside him, awaiting orders.
"Attack!" he shouted. "Attack it!"
His Summon charged. It slammed into the creature, claws raking its chest, teeth sinking into its shoulder. But the tentacles were faster. They wrapped around the Summon's neck, its arms, coiling tighter and tighter. The Summon thrashed, stretching the tentacles taut, but couldn't break free.
Then the creature bit down on Chen Jun's Summon, tearing a chunk from its arm.
---
A loud crash echoed from down the hall. Jin heard the screams and broke into a run, Fidex close behind him. Nathan and Josh's teams were already converging on the room.
Jin reached the doorway and saw it—a creature unlike any Zombie they'd faced. Its face was a honeycomb of bleeding holes, tentacles lashing from every opening, wrapping around Chen Jun's pinned Summon.
"Attack," Jin said.
Fidex moved. It crossed the room in three strides, seized the tentacles connecting the creature to Chen Jun's Summon, and sliced. The claws sheared through the black tendrils like wet paper. Thick, red‑black mucus sprayed, and the creature shrieked—a high, piercing sound that made everyone flinch.
The tentacles convulsed wildly, whipping across the living room, leaving streaks of slime on the walls.
The creature turned on Fidex, mouth gaping, tentacles reaching. It leaped.
Fidex met it with a punch that landed like a sledgehammer against its chest. Bones cracked. The creature flew backward, hit the wall, and crumpled. One arm dangled at a wrong angle, its ribs visibly caved.
Fidex strode forward, grabbed the creature by the throat, and lifted it off the ground. Its legs kicked weakly, tentacles flopping.
Nathan appeared in the doorway, Josh just behind him. Both stopped at the sight.
"What the hell is that?" Nathan breathed.
Then he saw Wade's body on the floor, throat torn open, and his face went grim.
Josh's eyes flickered from the creature to Wade's corpse to the gold chain still clutched in Wade's hand. His expression didn't change, but his jaw tightened. Fool, he thought. Risk your life for jewelry and get everyone killed.
Nathan turned to Chen Jun. "What happened?"
Chen Jun was shaking, his Summon still struggling to free itself from the severed tentacles. "We… we thought it was just a body. Wade went to the bedroom. When I heard him scream, I came out and saw… that thing."
Jin looked at Wade's hand, the necklace visible between his fingers. "He was after the gold," he said flatly. "Didn't check if the body was safe."
Lisa stepped up beside Jin, her Mutant Rat sniffing the air. "That's not like any Zombie we've seen. It was hiding. Waiting."
Nathan nodded slowly. "Everyone be careful. From now on, no one searches alone. And if you see a body, you treat it like a threat."
He called for someone to cover Wade's body. There was no time for more. They still had two floors to clear, and the day was fading.
But the death settled over the group like a weight. Wade had been greedy, careless—but watching his Summon die the instant he did was something none of them could ignore.
Jin glanced at the others. Mark's face was pale. Lisa's hand rested on her Rat, her knuckles white. Even Nathan's people were subdued.
They finished searching the eighteenth floor quickly, finding nothing else. No supplies, no more hidden creatures. Just bloodstained rooms and silence.
As they gathered to move to the nineteenth floor, Josh lingered at the back, his eyes on the stairwell leading down. Greg sidled up to him.
"The Marcus thing," Greg whispered. "You still want to do it tonight?"
Josh shook his head slowly. "Not yet. We wait."
Greg frowned. "Why?"
"Because they just lost one of theirs." Josh's voice was low, measured. "They're on edge. If something happens now, they'll be looking for a cause. Too risky."
He looked at the stairwell again, thinking of the chained door on the fifth floor, of Simon's son waiting behind it.
"Let them clear the upper floors. Let them get tired, spread thin. When they're not watching, we move."
Greg nodded slowly. "And then?"
Josh smiled—thin, cold. "Then we remind them that some secrets are too dangerous to keep. And if Jin won't share how he got so strong… maybe an accident with Simon's son will loosen his tongue."
He turned away, joining the others heading toward the nineteenth floor.
---
The nineteenth floor was worse than the eighteenth.
It was silent. Too silent. The doors were closed, no blood in the hallway, no signs of struggle. Everything looked almost normal—except for the smell. A thick, sweet stench of decay that clung to the air, making it hard to breathe.
Nathan stopped at the security door, holding up a fist. Everyone froze.
"I don't like this," he said quietly. "Something's here."
Jin felt it too. A prickling at the back of his neck, the same sensation he'd had in the fog. Fidex tensed beside him, its four arms flexing.
"We clear it," Jin said. "One room at a time. No splitting up."
Nathan nodded. "Agreed."
They moved forward, every step echoing in the silence. The first door they tried was locked. Fidex made short work of it, slicing through the security bar.
Inside was empty. No furniture, no bodies, nothing. Just dust and the smell.
The second room was the same. The third.
By the fourth room, the tension was unbearable. Something was wrong, but none of them could say what.
When Fidex cut open the fourth door, the smell hit them like a wall. Rot. Thick and cloying.
Jin raised a hand. "Stay back."
He sent Fidex in first. The Four‑Armed Corpse stepped through the doorway, its claws extended, ready.
For a long moment, nothing happened.
Then Fidex stopped. Its head turned slowly, scanning the darkness inside. Jin felt through their link—a flicker of something. Not fear, but wariness.
The room was packed with bodies. Piled in the corners, stacked against the walls. Zombies. Dozens of them, their limbs tangled, their faces frozen in death.
But they weren't moving. They weren't alive.
They'd been dragged here. Piled like garbage.
Something had collected them.
Jin backed out of the doorway, his face carefully blank. "We're done here," he said. "We go down. Now."
No one argued. The group turned and moved toward the stairwell, faster than they'd come.
Behind them, in the darkness of the nineteenth floor, something stirred.
---
End of Chapter 19