Arty didn't wait for the next one to reach the fence.
The shape moving through the trees was enough, the way it stumbled without slowing, correcting itself without balance, pushing forward with a kind of relentless intent that didn't belong to anything normal.
He had seen enough in the last few minutes to know that whatever had taken that first man wasn't contained, and more importantly, wasn't slowing down.
He backed toward the front door, eyes flicking between the approaching figures and the broken gap in the fence, already calculating distance, timing, and the number of seconds it would take before the yard filled with more than he could handle.
The answer came quickly.
Not enough.
He stepped inside and shut the door hard behind him, sliding the deadbolt across with a sharp metallic click that sounded far too small to matter.
The house felt different the moment he crossed the threshold, as if the walls had lost whatever quiet protection they once held and were now just thin barriers between him and something inevitable.
For a moment, he stood there, listening.
Nothing.
Then something hit the fence again.
Not one body this time.
More than one.
The sound carried through the timber and into the house like a warning that had already arrived too late.
"Right," he said under his breath, moving quickly now.
He didn't panic.
Panic wasted time.
Instead, he moved through the front room with purpose, grabbing what he could see first, a chair dragged across the floor, then another, stacking them against the door more out of instinct than belief.
It wasn't going to stop anything determined, but it might slow it, and right now even seconds mattered.
Another impact hit the fence.
Closer.
He moved faster.
Kitchen.
Drawers opened.
Closed.
Knife. No. Too short.
Another. Better.
He grabbed it, then paused, reconsidered, and set it down again, reaching instead for something heavier, something that wouldn't rely on precision when everything started going wrong.
His gaze landed on the cast iron pan sitting on the stove.
"That'll do," he muttered, grabbing it and testing the weight in his hand.
Outside, something broke.
Not the fence this time.
Wood.
His head snapped toward the front door.
A crack split the air, followed by the splintering sound of timber giving way under repeated force.
"They don't stop," he said quietly, the realisation settling in with a cold certainty that tightened everything inside him.
There was no hesitation in them.
No fear.
No self-preservation.
That changed the rules completely.
The first impact hit the front door hard enough to rattle the frame.
Arty stepped back, gripping the pan in one hand and the wrench in the other, his stance shifting into something more grounded, less reactive.
Another hit followed.
Then another.
Each one stronger.
Each one more deliberate.
The chairs shuddered with the force, scraping slightly against the floor as the pressure built.
"They're not thinking," he said, more to anchor himself than anything else. "They're just coming."
The door bowed inward.
Not much.
Enough.
The wood around the lock creaked under strain, the screws beginning to shift as something outside slammed into it again with enough force to make the entire frame groan.
Arty's eyes flicked toward the back of the house.
Options.
He needed options.
Staying here wasn't one.
He moved fast, backing away from the door and heading toward the rear hallway, his mind already running through what he had, what he didn't have, and how long he could realistically stay ahead of whatever was coming.
The house wasn't defendable.
Not like this.
Not with this.
That thought settled in quickly, brutally, and without room for argument.
Another crack split from the front.
Louder this time.
Closer.
He reached the back door and pulled it open, stepping out into the narrow strip of yard behind the house that led toward the shed and the open paddock beyond.
Air hit him differently out here.
Not fresher.
Just… wider.
More exposed.
He didn't like that either.
A sound to his left made him turn.
Movement.
Fast.
Another one was already coming around the side of the house, cutting him off before he'd even cleared the doorway.
"Right, so that's not an option," he muttered, stepping back inside just as the thing reached the corner, its movements jerky but direct, like it had already locked onto him as a target.
The back door slammed shut.
He locked it.
Pointless.
Still did it.
The front door gave way.
The crack turned into a break, the wood splitting inward as the lock tore free from the frame, the barricade shifting under the sudden force as something slammed through with enough momentum to carry it halfway into the room.
Arty moved before it fully registered.
Forward.
Not back.
The first one came through the door at an angle, half-falling, half-lunging, and he brought the wrench down hard, the impact jarring his arm as it connected with the side of its head, dropping it instantly.
No hesitation.
No pause.
He stepped past it as another pushed through the gap, this one faster, more upright, its hands reaching, its mouth open in that same empty, hungry way.
The pan swung this time.
Heavy.
Solid.
It connected with a dull crack that sent the thing sideways into the wall.
It didn't stay down.
"Of course not," Arty said, already moving again.
He brought the wrench down again, harder this time, aiming lower, adjusting without thinking, and this time the body dropped and stayed there, collapsing into the mess of broken timber and overturned furniture.
Another shape forced its way through the door.
Then another.
The gap widened with each one.
Too many.
Too fast.
Arty backed toward the hallway, breathing harder now, his arms already starting to feel the strain from the repeated impacts, the adrenaline pushing him forward but not enough to ignore the obvious.
He couldn't hold this.
Not here.
Not like this.
A hand caught his shoulder.
He twisted hard, wrench coming up instinctively, striking without thought, the impact connecting with something close enough that he felt it rather than saw it.
The body dropped.
Another replaced it.
There was no space anymore.
No control.
Just movement.
He fell back into the hallway, nearly losing his footing as something slammed into him from the side, sending him into the wall hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs.
The wrench slipped from his hand.
The pan followed.
That was it.
The shift happened instantly, the moment where the fight stopped being winnable and became something else entirely.
Hands grabbed at him.
Clawed.
Pulled.
He pushed back, hard, driving one of them away long enough to regain his footing, but there were too many now, bodies forcing into the narrow space, collapsing over each other without slowing, without hesitation.
A flash of movement caught his eye.
The first one he'd dropped.
The one outside.
It was still.
But something about it felt wrong.
A faint glint.
Arty didn't know why he noticed it, or why it mattered in that moment when everything else was collapsing around him, but his gaze locked onto it for just a fraction too long.
Something inside the skull.
Something… solid.
Then a hand closed around his arm.
Another around his shoulder.
He drove forward again, desperate now, forcing space where there wasn't any, but it wasn't enough, and he knew it wasn't enough even as he did it.
The hallway closed in.
The weight increased.
The noise became everything.
And then—
Pain.
Sharp.
Immediate.
Final.
Arty hit the floor hard, the world tilting sideways as the pressure overwhelmed him, the last thing he saw not the faces above him, not the hands tearing into him, but that brief, impossible glint of something buried inside the skull of the thing he'd dropped.
Then nothing.
Silence.
And then—
He was breathing.
Air filled his lungs in a sharp, involuntary pull as his body jerked upright, hands gripping the steering wheel of his ute as though he'd never left it, the engine idling beneath him, the road stretching out ahead exactly as it had before.
The dog stood in the distance.
Still.
Watching.
Arty blinked once.
Twice.
"No way, what the heck was that," he said quietly.
Everything was the same.
The same road.
The same light.
The same moment.
His grip tightened on the wheel as the memory hit him all at once, not fading like a dream but sitting there, sharp and intact, every second of it exactly as it had happened.
"That's not…" he started, then stopped.
His eyes shifted toward the dog again.
It didn't move.
Neither did he.
For the first time since it had all started, Arty Calder didn't feel confused.
He didn't feel uncertain.
He didn't feel like he was missing something.
He felt one thing.
Certain.
"This isn't over," he said quietly.
And somewhere deep beneath that certainty, something else began to take shape.
Not understanding.
Not yet.
But recognition.