The phantom pain was always worse when it rained. It was a dull, throbbing ache in Kenny's right hip and lower back—a jagged reminder of a dusty road in Helmand Province and a pressure plate that didn't like the weight of an MRAP.
Kenny, known to his squad as "Ken," sat slumped in his recliner in a cramped apartment in Savannah. At twenty-eight, he felt eighty. His skin, a deep, rich mahogany, looked sallow under the flickering fluorescent light of his living room. He ran a hand through his short-cropped black hair, feeling the faint ridges of scar tissue near his temple.
The TV was the only thing keeping the silence at bay. He was binging The Walking Dead for the third time. There was something cathartic about watching a world end when yours had already shattered. On the screen, Rick Grimes was stumbling through a deserted hospital, looking for answers in a world of rot.
"Stupid," Ken muttered, his voice gravelly. "Should've stayed in the room. Clear your corners, Rick."
He took a sip of lukewarm water, his grey eyes—an anomaly he'd inherited from a grandfather he never met—fixed on the screen. He remembered being eighteen, the day he enlisted. He'd been a stringy, wide-eyed kid back then, barely 150 pounds soaking wet, fueled by a desperate need to be something more than a statistic. Ten years in the Corps had built him into a wall of muscle, then broke that wall down into a pile of scrap metal.
The rain lashed against the window. A flash of lightning illuminated the room, followed by a crack of thunder so violent it vibrated in Ken's chest. The TV screen flickered, the image of the hospital hallway distorting into a swirl of static and blinding white light.
Ken reached for the remote, but his hand felt... light. The ache in his hip vanished. The heavy, oppressive weight of his own body suddenly felt like it had been lifted by a vacuum.
"What the—"
The white light expanded, swallowing the recliner, the half-eaten takeout, and the smell of stale apartment air. The last thing Ken felt was the sensation of falling upward, a nauseating rush of wind, and the sound of a heart monitor flatlining.
…
Awareness returned in stages. First, the smell: antiseptic, floor wax, and a cloying, underlying scent of something sweet and putrid. Like a bouquet of flowers left in a vase for a month.
Second, the sound: the rhythmic hiss-click of a ventilator nearby and the distant, frantic buzzing of a fly.
Ken opened his eyes. The ceiling was white acoustic tile. He tried to sit up, expecting the usual agonizing protest from his back, but he moved with a fluid, effortless grace that he hadn't felt in years. He looked down at his hands.
They weren't the calloused, scarred hands of a veteran. They were smooth. The knuckles weren't swollen. His skin was the same deep brown, but the texture was different—softer, younger.
Panic surged. He swung his legs out of the bed and stood up. He almost fell over, not because of pain, but because he was missing the bulk he'd carried for a decade. He caught his reflection in the small, polished metal mirror above the sink.
"No way," he whispered.
The man in the mirror was a boy. He was the eighteen-year-old Ken who had stood in the recruiter's office in 2016. He was lanky, his shoulders narrow, his face devoid of the beard stubble and the "thousand-yard stare." His grey eyes were wide, bright, and utterly terrified. He was wearing a thin hospital gown that hung off his bony frame.
He felt his chest. The scar from the shrapnel was gone. The tattoo of the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor on his forearm? Gone. It was as if the last ten years had been erased by a cosmic sander.
"Okay," Ken breathed, forcing his Marine-drilled brain to kick into gear. "S.A.L.U.T.E. report. Size, Activity, Location... I'm in a hospital. I'm... young? I'm skinny. Why am I in a hospital?"
He looked around the room. It was disheveled. A tray of food sat untouched, covered in a thick layer of dust. The clock on the wall was stopped. There was a sense of profound abandonment that sent a chill down his spine.
He stepped into the hallway.
The silence was heavy. It wasn't the silence of a sleeping building; it was the silence of a tomb. He walked barefoot, his senses screaming. Every instinct he'd honed in the service told him he was in a hot zone, even if he didn't know why.
He passed a nurse's station. It was trashed. Files were scattered like autumn leaves. He saw a gurney overturned, a dark, dried smear of something that looked like chocolate syrup—but he knew was blood—streaking the floor.
"Hello?" he called out. His voice cracked, sounding higher than he remembered. "Is anyone here?"
No answer. Just the buzzing fly.
He kept walking, his heart hammering against his ribs. He needed a weapon. He needed clothes. He felt dangerously exposed in the gown. He ducked into a storage closet, finding a pair of oversized scrubs and some surgical clogs. It wasn't a plate carrier and combat boots, but it was a start.
As he cinched the drawstring of the pants, he heard a sound from a few doors down. A metallic clink. Then, a groan. It wasn't a human groan of pain; it was a hollow, rattling sound, like air escaping a bellows.
Ken froze. He crept toward the door where the sound had originated.
He saw a man.
The man was tall, gaunt, wearing a hospital gown similar to the one Ken had just discarded. He was standing by a doorway, his back to Ken. He moved with a strange, hitching gait.
"Hey," Ken said, his voice low and steady. "Sir? You okay?"
The man didn't turn. He just continued to shuffle toward a set of double doors at the end of the hall. Ken followed at a distance, his mind racing. Was this a dream? A hallucination brought on by a stroke?
Then he saw the double doors. They were chained shut. A heavy piece of lumber was wedged through the handles. Written across the white paint in jagged, hurried black spray paint were the words:
DON'T OPEN. DEAD INSIDE.
Ken stopped dead. A cold sweat broke out across his brow. He knew those words. He knew that handwriting. He looked at the man in the hallway. The man had reached the doors and was feebly scratching at the wood.
"No," Ken whispered. "That's not possible. That's a TV show."
Suddenly, another door opened—the one directly across from the chained cafeteria. A man stumbled out. He was pale, bearded, and looked like he'd been dragged through hell. He was clutching an IV pole for support, his eyes unfocused and bleary.
Ken recognized him instantly. The messy hair, the sharp nose, the look of utter disorientation. It was Rick Grimes.
Rick didn't see Ken at first. He collapsed to his knees, gasping for air, looking at the "Dead Inside" doors with the same horror Ken was currently feeling.
Ken took a step forward, his combat training overriding his shock. Rick looked like he was about to pass out, and in this world—if this really was this world—being unconscious on the floor was a death sentence.
"Hey!" Ken called out, hurrying over.
Rick's head snapped up. He squinted, his blue eyes trying to find Ken in the dim light. "Water..." he rasped. "Please..."
Ken reached him and knelt down, putting a firm hand on Rick's shoulder. Even though he was in an eighteen-year-old's body, the way he held himself—the posture, the grip—was all Marine.
"I got you, buddy. Take it easy," Ken said. He looked at Rick, then back at the chained doors. The wood was beginning to creak. Something on the other side was pushing. Dozens of pale, grey fingers were poking through the gap between the doors, wiggling hungrily.
The reality hit Ken like a physical blow. He wasn't in Savannah. He wasn't twenty-eight. He was in Cynthiana, Kentucky—or maybe Atlanta—and the world had ended while he was asleep. He was a skinny teenager with the mind of a combat vet, trapped in a nightmare he'd only ever watched from the safety of a recliner.
"My name is Ken," he said, his grey eyes locking onto Rick's. "I'm going to get you out of here. But we have to move. Now."
Rick looked at him, confused by the authority in the kid's voice. "Where... where is everyone?"
Ken looked at the grasping fingers behind the door and then down the dark, blood-stained hallway. He felt a strange, terrifying spark of adrenaline. He was broken no longer. He was young, he was fast, and he knew exactly what was coming.
"They're gone, Rick," Ken said, hauling the deputy to his feet. "It's just us now."