The stench hit first. Sour, sharp—an acidic rot that clawed at the back of Elias's throat. He blinked. The driver, a man in his thirties, had pissed himself. A man with enough guts to flee a hit-and-run, but not enough to face what had come for him.

  But this wasn't just fear.

  This was wrong.

  Elias knew his mind wasn't slipping. No hallucinations. No drug triggers. And yet—

  He reached for the door instinctively.

  Locked.

  The driver was collapsing inward, folding himself beneath the dashboard like a child trying to vanish beneath his blanket. On the windshield, the little girl still clung upside down, her cracked face pressed to the glass. She was smiling.

  The smile didn't change.

  It only widened.

  And then—

  Cold.

  A ribbon of ice across Elias's neck. He looked down.

  She was there.

  The woman from the backseat.

  No, not just there—crouched in the narrow gap between the front and rear seats, her hands locked around his throat. The same hands he'd used to strangle her in the restroom.

  He moved fast.

  The knife came out.

  Clean arc, downward.

  Steel into flesh.

  The blade bit into her wrist, deep—but stuck.

  It wouldn't come free.

  Her grip didn't falter.

  Worse. It tightened.

  His breath was failing now. The air simply wasn't there. His chest convulsed, lungs clawing for something that no longer came. But his mind—

  His mind wasn't panicking.

  It was clear. Cold. Almost… euphoric.

  He felt it again. That same surge. That same rising static, the one he'd only ever found inside moments of controlled violence.

  The edges of his vision began to float. Not from fear. From lack of oxygen.

  "Click—"

  He didn't waste effort on instinct. One hand had failed with the knife.

  The other went for the seat lever.

  A hard pull.

  The seat snapped backward under his weight, crashing flat. The woman's body went with it, her grip crushed beneath the collapsing frame.

  Air returned like broken glass.

  He gasped.

  Steady now.

  With both hands, he shoved the seat away, rolled sideways, crashed into the driver. The door lock was just there—his fingers found it.

  Click.

  Unlocked.

  He pushed through the door, spilled onto the pavement.

  He hit the ground hard.

  The world skidded. Concrete blurred past his face. He rolled, knees tucked in tight, instinct protecting the only parts that mattered. Skin tore. Elbows scraped. His jaw slammed pavement once, maybe twice. Didn't count.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Didn't matter.

  He'd gotten out.

  That was enough.

  Behind him, tires screeched. The car slowed—not stopped, not controlled, just… bleeding momentum. The driver had remembered what cars were for.

  But not fast enough.

  The door cracked open, half a body poking out, and then—

  She was there.

  Dangling.

  That same girl.

  Face broken in the middle, lips still pulled into a smile, dangling from the top edge of the door like meat on a hook.

  Her leg swung lazily in front of the driver's face, skin barely attached, twitching.

  He screamed.

  Didn't finish the motion of getting out.

  Folded back in.

  She followed.

  Elias didn't wait to see what happened next. His feet were already moving, body held together by the cold math of escape. No plan, just motion. One direction: away.

  "Pop."

  Rear door opening.

  Another voice followed it—laughter, giddy and high and cracked like glass in a blender.

  The woman again.

  Behind him.

  She was faster than before.

  Footsteps scraped.

  No—

  Shoes.

  Shoes dragging across broken asphalt, catching sharp on every jagged edge.

  The city blurred.

  Shops were gone.

  The lights had vanished.

  He blinked.

  A row of dark banks and corner stores became something else—

  Skeletal towers.

  Unfinished buildings.

  Steel rebar like ribs tearing through concrete.

  Empty windows staring like socketless eyes.

  The road beneath his feet—gone smooth to shattered.

  Cracked stones and rotted soil replaced pavement.

  This wasn't the city anymore.

  Velvet East had been in the center of downtown.

  This was something else.

  Something built under it.

  He slipped.

  Elias hit the mud hard, water splashing into his mouth, grit slashing across his tongue. He tried to rise—

  Pain.

  Something pierced his back.

  Ten—

  No, not ten.

  Claws.

  Ten of them.

  They hooked muscle, yanked him back down.

  A hiss escaped him.

  Not a scream.

  A hiss—half pain, half disbelief.

  She was on top of him.

  Weight pressed down. His arms buckled.

  Muck filled his mouth again.

  She raked him.

  Nails—not nails anymore, blades—dug down his spine, tore skin from bone. Something warm followed it. Something that smelled like rust.

  His fingers found a bar of steel.

  Rebar, jutting out from the ground like a snapped nerve.

  He didn't think.

  Just pulled.

  He twisted, body turning against the pain.

  Steel caught her throat.

  Not enough to kill.

  Enough to redirect.

  She rolled. Fell. Landed beside him in the filth.

  He surged up, breath ragged, body raw. Didn't check the wounds.

  Concrete block. Nearby.

  He grabbed it.

  Didn't think.

  Just brought it down.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Again.

  Her head didn't crack. It bent.

  Each strike sank into flesh but gave back too much. Like the skull was made of packed dirt. Like it refused to split the way heads should.

  He kept going anyway.

  Straddling her. Hands shaking. Concrete rising and falling like a hammer held by someone else's fury.

  She twitched. Then stopped.

  He didn't trust it.

  Her skull had collapsed in, but not out. Not shattered. Just... absorbed.

  His breath burned. Muscles trembled. The block slipped from his hand, thudding beside her head like a second, quieter verdict.

  She wasn't gone.

  He knew it.

  The silence wasn't trustable.

  Elias stood—barely. The stink of rot and dust and blood clawed at his lungs. Then something else cut through.

  Light.

  A beam from above.

  Someone was looking at him.

  A second-floor window of the half-finished tower. A woman. Apron. Flashlight.

  Her voice cracked across the air, too clear for the mess below.

  "Up here! Get inside, now!"

  No hesitation.

  He ran.

  Didn't look at the body.

  Didn't check the shadows behind him.

  Concrete stairwell. Cold walls. No railings. Just steps and space.

  She met him halfway.

  Didn't give her name.

  Just the flashlight.

  "Take it," she said. "Go inside. Under the bed. She can't find you under there."

  And then she was gone.

  Down the stairs. No explanation. No logic.

  He turned the light on the path ahead.

  Just concrete. Gray. Empty window frames like broken teeth. Wind bleeding in from everywhere.

  The room had a bed.

  That was all.

  Not a real one—just a frame, a slab, maybe left from workers who slept during construction or squatters who didn't survive.

  He crawled under.

  Dust everywhere.

  It filled his throat, scratched his eyes, whispered in places dust shouldn't whisper.

  There were things under there—old flyers, crumpled protest signs, scraps that looked like relics from a failed movement.

  Words he couldn't make out.

  But footsteps came before he could read.

  Heavy.

  Slow.

  Wrong.

  Thudding like someone dragging a chair.

  No. Not dragging.

  Slamming.

  Each step hit the stairs like a body falling.

  "Thud."

  "Thud."

  She was coming.

  The woman in the suit. The one he'd killed. Twice, maybe.

  He turned off the flashlight.

  Held his breath.

  He remembered movies. The idea that some things—undead things—could only track you by the sound you made. The air you breathed. The heat you leaked.

  He hoped that was still true.

  Even here.

  Even now.

  "Thud."

  Upstairs now.

  "Thud."

  Closer.

  "Thud."

  In the room.

  He clutched the flashlight with both hands, willing it not to shake, not to click, not to betray him. The floor vibrated with each impact. She was close. So close.

  She stopped.

  Just beside the bed.

  Silence.

  And then—relief.

  Stillness.

  She wasn't moving.

  He almost let out a breath.

  And then he looked up.

  Ten inches from his face, staring down from the edge of the bed, was her.

  A face, shattered and upside-down.

  Blood-black.

  Teeth visible through a rip in one cheek.

  And her eyes—still smiling.

  She had never left.

  She hadn't walked upstairs.

  She had climbed.

  With her head.

  Those sounds?

  Not footsteps.

  Each "thud" was her skull hitting the stairs.

  Next: The fire doesn't just burn bodies.

  It leaves a pattern.

  And sometimes, the signal replays itself.