The 7-Eleven's interior was dim without power, emergency lighting casting weak pools of illumination that left the aisles in shadow.

  David's hands were still shaking from the adrenaline, his crowbar feeling both too heavy and not substantial enough. The smell of burned flesh from outside drifted through the open door, mixing with the stale air and vague chemical scent of a convenience store.

  His necromancer senses had quietened after the creatures fell. There was still a murmur so quiet didn't mean safe.

  "Everyone OK?" Mark asked, his deep voice subdued.

  David took inventory. Charlie looked pale, the reality of what he'd just done with his fire magic finally sinking in. Katie had her knife in a white-knuckle grip, her knuckles bloodless. Camila's jaw was set with determination, but her eyes kept darting to the door.

  They'd won. But the cost was written on their faces.

  "Did anyone else feel that rush at the end?" Mark continued. "Right after the creatures stopped moving. Like someone injected coffee straight into my veins."

  David had felt it. The warm surge of energy, the sharp clarity. The system rewarding them with experience.

  Making violence feel good. That was dangerous, and David knew it.

  "I felt it too," Katie said quietly. She was staring at her hands, still gripping the kitchen knife. "I was feeling sick. Guilty. Then there was this rush and I felt... better."

  Her voice broke slightly on the last word.

  Camila moved first, always the one to push through discomfort toward action. "These putas made it easy," she said, her accent thickening. "Seeing them move like that, so unnatural. I had to end their suffering."

  She paused, seeming to hear her own words. "The people they used to be, I mean. Those things weren't people anymore."

  Mark nodded slowly. "There's a saying about civilization. About how even the most civilized person is only three meals away from anarchy. Three days without food, water, safety, and we revert to something more basic."

  "I'm not sure that's the exact quote, honey," Katie said, but her tone was gentle. "But I know what you mean. It's day three. The third day of our descent."

  The word hung in the air like smoke. Descent.

  Into what? David wondered. How much further would they have to fall?

  "Look," Camila said, straightening her shoulders. "I know we need to talk about this. Really process what's happening to us and what we're becoming. But right now, we have a plan and we're losing daylight. Let's make this worth it by actually helping someone. OK?"

  The others nodded, grateful for direction.

  David forced himself to focus. They were here for supplies and survivors. Everything else could wait.

  "Let's check the aisles," he said. "Stay alert. There could be more of those things."

  They fanned out, weapons ready, moving through the store with cautious steps. The shadows between aisles felt threatening despite the open sightlines.

  David was approaching the snack aisle when Charlie's voice cut through the tension. "Hey, guys! We missed something. Look here, I think he's OK!"

  Everyone converged on the front windows where Charlie was pointing. Outside, at the gas pumps, several vehicles sat abandoned. But one car sat slightly apart, clearly waiting its turn for fuel.

  And slumped across the center console was a man.

  They'd completely overlooked him in the urgency of the fight.

  "Holy shit," Camila breathed. "Someone we can actually save."

  They moved outside as a group, the burned corpses of the creatures drawing only brief glances. Charlie reached the car first and peered through the window.

  "He's breathing," Charlie reported. "I think he's just unconscious like Sarah was."

  Mark positioned everyone around the car, weapons ready in case this was a trick. Then he tried the door.

  It opened smoothly.

  Mark leaned in to check the man's pulse, his medical training taking over. After a moment, he nodded. "Pulse is there but very slow. He's out cold, probably has been since the wave hit."

  He reached past the unconscious man and tried the ignition. The engine turned over with a tired whirring sound but didn't catch. After a few seconds, Mark released the key.

  "Engine was running when he passed out," Mark said. "Ran until the tank emptied. We can move him, but it might be better to leave him here until we're done inside. Close the door, he should be safe."

  No one argued. The man wasn't going anywhere, and they had limited time.

  They returned to the store, moving with renewed purpose. Finding someone who they could actually help felt like vindication. Proof that not everyone was dying or transforming.

  David was checking behind the counter when Katie called out from deeper in the store. "I've got another one! Female, looks like she was shopping when it happened."

  "Let me check her," David said, moving toward Katie's position. "I want to test a theory."

  He'd been listening carefully as he moved through the store, straining for any hint of that whisper-murmur that had warned him about the creatures outside. So far, background noise, nothing directed like when the zombies got close to them.

  But if he was right about what that sense actually did, it should tell him whether someone was still human or had something else riding them.

  The woman was slumped in front of the snack aisle, one hand still reaching toward a bag of chips. David approached slowly, extending the crowbar to nudge her leg.

  No reaction.

  He crouched beside her, balancing his weight on the crowbar, ready to spring back if needed. His fingers found her neck, searching for a pulse.

  There. Weak and slow, but steady.

  Relief flooded through him. "She's alive. Just unconscious like the guy outside."

  "That's two people we can help," Camila said. "Maybe things aren't as bad as we thought."

  David wanted to believe that. But something in his gut said they were just getting lucky.

  "Oh my God," Charlie's voice came from the back of the store. "Oh crap, oh crap, that's a person under there."

  The sound of retching followed.

  David ran toward the sound, Mark and Camila close behind. They found Charlie bent over near the register, one hand braced against a display rack, the other covering his mouth.

  Behind the counter, slumped in a wheeled office chair, was the source of his distress.

  The cashier was covered in layers of hardening greenish slime. The substance looked organic, almost like a cocoon, but wrong in ways David's brain struggled to process. Worst of all were the movements beneath the surface.

  Something was shifting. Reforming. Growing.

  "Jesus," Mark whispered.

  David's stomach churned but he forced himself to look closer. "I've seen this before. Mr. Lopez. He was covered in the same stuff before he... changed. Others too when I was making my way across town."

  He straightened, his analytical mind kicking in despite his revulsion. "I think they're transforming. Becoming those things. Like Mr. Lopez. I don't know what decides it, but this is what happens before they hatch."

  "Hatch?" Katie's voice was faint. "You make it sound like they're insects."

  "I don't know what else to call it," David said.

  They found two more in quick succession. Both customers, both covered in that greenish slime, both with visible movement beneath the hardening surface.

  The group stood in the center aisle, staring at the cocooned figures in silence.

  Charlie was the first to voice what they were all thinking. "So, do we kill them now? Stop them from being a problem later?"

  "Absolutely not!" Katie's response was immediate and forceful. "That would be murder. We defend ourselves, but we don't just kill people. Especially when we don't know what's happening."

  Her conviction wavered slightly as she looked at the nearest cocoon. "We don't know they won't recover. That they won't emerge like us instead of becoming... that."

  "They won't," Charlie said bluntly. "You told me what happened to Mr. Lopez. This is the same thing. These people are already gone."

  "You don't know that," Katie shot back. "We can't just murder people on assumptions."

  Mark held up a hand before the argument could escalate. "We leave them. Katie's right. We're not executioners. If they were attacking us, that would be different. But they're not a threat right now."

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  Camila nodded reluctantly. "Agreed. But these things still give me the creeps."

  "Same," David said. The cocooned figures made his skin crawl in ways the active zombies hadn't. At least the creatures outside had been clear threats. These were people caught in the process of becoming something else.

  "We need to get out of here," David continued. "Grab what we came for. Food, water, medical supplies. And we need keys to that delivery truck outside if we can find them."

  "The driver might be one of these," Charlie said, gesturing at the cocoons. "We might have to search them."

  "No," Katie said firmly. "We're not disturbing them."

  "Not dealing with them before they're active is dumb," Charlie argued. "We're just making things harder for ourselves later."

  "Charlie…" Katie started.

  "He has a point about the experience," Charlie interrupted. "That rush we all felt? That was the system giving us points. We need to get stronger if we're going to help people. These things are just sitting there waiting to become a threat."

  David tuned out the argument, moving toward the cold drinks section. He needed water. His mouth was dry and his mana felt depleted. Maybe hydration would help.

  Then he heard it.

  A soft bumping noise. Rhythmic. And beneath it, that familiar whisper-murmur.

  David froze, head cocked to the side, listening intently.

  The others were still arguing behind him, Katie and Charlie's voices rising. But David focused on the sound, trying to localize it.

  There. Behind the refrigerators. In the stocking area.

  "Be quiet!" David hissed urgently. "I hear something over there!"

  The others didn't seem to hear him over their own argument.

  "Heads up!" David raised his voice. "There's something back there!"

  That got their attention. The argument died as everyone turned toward him.

  David approached the refrigerator display carefully. The glass doors showed the usual arrangement of drinks, but in the dim emergency lighting he could see through to the back.

  These coolers had doors on both sides. Customer access from the front, stocking access from the back.

  And something was moving in that dark space.

  The bumping grew more insistent as he approached. The whisper-murmur resolved into something almost comprehensible. Move. Hunger. Move.

  His necromancer senses were screaming at him, another one. Something dead was moving back there, animated by one of those alien entities.

  "Do any of you hear it?" David asked without taking his eyes off the glass. "There's a sound like tires on pavement, or a really low murmur of conversation. Hard to describe."

  Camila moved closer. "I hear the bumping now that I'm near you. Nothing else."

  The others agreed. Just the physical sound of something hitting the refrigerator door. No whispers.

  David felt very alone suddenly. "I think I'm hearing the thing that's animating it. The Nath, or whatever they're called. I have an ability associated with speech and hearing. It's what let me get Halt. I think it also lets me hear these things."

  "So you can sense them?" Mark asked, his tactical mind already working through implications.

  "I think so," David said. "It's like they're talking to me. Or at least broadcasting on a frequency only I can hear."

  Charlie appeared beside him, peering into the dark space. "Are we going to let this one be, or are we going to deal with it?"

  There was an awkward pause.

  "I think it's trapped back there," Charlie continued. "But we could get the door to the service area open. It's over by the restroom."

  "Or we could not," Katie said. "It's not a threat back there. Why risk it?"

  "Experience," Charlie said immediately. "I don't know if you guys check your status, but that rush at the end of the last fight was experience. My bar jumped a good chunk. That means more skills, more magic, more ability to help people."

  Unspoken was the fact that it felt good. Like coffee hitting your system, sharp and energizing.

  David understood the temptation. His analyst brain had already noted the risk-reward calculation. One zombie, trapped, versus the experience and practice of taking it down safely.

  "Does anyone feel safe opening these fridges with that thing back there?" David asked.

  As if in response, there was a crash with considerably more force. The zombie was trying harder to reach them.

  "That settles it," David said. "We beat the first two easily. Charlie, how are you on Magic? I can stop it if needed."

  Charlie checked his internal reserves. "I can toss a couple of Firebolts. Should be enough."

  The others looked at David, waiting for directions. He was making the calls now, he realized. They were looking for leadership.

  "We're doing this," David said. "We need the supplies and we need to be able to access those drinks safely. Now we just need to figure out how to…”

  He stopped because Charlie had walked away.

  The younger man went straight to the counter, reached over the cocooned cashier without hesitation, and grabbed a large ring of keys from beside the register.

  "Charlie," Katie started.

  But he was already trying keys in the heavy door at the end of the refrigerator bank. The third key fit with a solid click.

  Charlie gripped the handle and looked back at the group. "Distract it!"

  Before anyone could argue, he whipped the door open, peered inside, and raised his hand.

  Firebolt erupted from his palm in a streak of orange flame. The spell flew into the dark space, illuminating the zombie in harsh relief for a split second.

  Charlie slammed the door shut.

  "Well?" he asked excitedly. "Did I hit it? How's it looking?"

  David overcame his shock first, his necromancer senses tracking the creature's movements. "You hit it. The zombie's on fire and it's moving toward the door."

  "Zombie?" Katie asked.

  "Seriously," David said. "It's a dead person shambling around with poor coordination. It's a zombie. The only thing that could make it more obvious would be moaning 'brains' as it comes at us."

  He met Katie's eyes. "I'm sorry. But it's not a person anymore. I don't see any way to save it."

  Katie looked like she wanted to argue but couldn't find the words.

  "Distract it!" Charlie said, tension and excitement mixing in his voice. "Tell me when it starts moving toward you!"

  David walked to the other end of the refrigerator display and opened the last door. He pushed his crowbar through the rows of drinks, clearing space, then used it to rap firmly on the glass back of the cooler.

  The inner door swung open after a few hits.

  "Hey!" David yelled into the darkness. "Zombie! Over here!"

  The creature reacted immediately. David could hear it through his necromancer senses, the whisper-murmur changing pitch as it turned.

  "It's moving," Camila called out, watching from her angle.

  Charlie smoothly opened his door again and lined up his shot. The zombie was presenting its back as it staggered toward David's voice.

  "Come on," Charlie whispered. "Come on."

  Firebolt erupted at close range, catching the zombie square in the back of the head. The spell hit with devastating force, the fire spreading across already-burned clothes.

  Then the sound hit.

  The zombie shrieked.

  David staggered, hands flying to his head as he stumbled back in surprise. The crowbar clattered to the floor. His knees sagged as he fought for balance.

  The sound wasn't coming through his ears, or not just through his ears, it was shockingly loud and seemed to engage his hearing in the same way the murmur and muttering had. This was the first loud sound he had heard from his other sense.

  The zombie's death scream tore through that channel like feedback through a microphone. A psychic shriek that resonated in frequencies human ears weren't meant to perceive.

  David's vision went white. The sound was WRONG. Alien. A burst of signal that his necromancer senses translated into pure agony, a cry of extreme distress.

  "Did I get it?" Charlie's voice was distant through the ringing in David's ears and the echoing scream in his head.

  David shook his head, how could the kid not have heard that? Then it dawned on him. The scream wasn't physical. It was psychic. Spiritual. Whatever sense let him hear the Nath was being overloaded.

  The zombie had collapsed, flames consuming its body. But the echo of that scream still reverberated through David's consciousness like ripples spreading across a pond.

  "David?" Camila's hand on his shoulder made him flinch. "You OK?"

  He forced himself to breathe. To focus through the pain. His vision was clearing, but his head felt like someone had used it as a bell.

  "Did none of you hear that?" David managed.

  They looked at him with concern and confusion.

  "Hear what?" Mark asked. "The body falling?"

  David's blood ran cold. "The scream. It screamed when it died. You didn't hear it screaming?"

  Katie shook her head. "I heard something. Like a wet thump when it fell and maybe a grunting noise? But no scream."

  They'd barely heard anything. Just normal death sounds.

  But to David, with his cursed senses, it had been a clarion call.

  "Yes!" Charlie was saying, apparently feeling the rush of experience. "Got it!"

  He turned to the group with a grin that faded when he saw David still on his knees. "Bro, you OK? You look like you're going to puke."

  "The scream," David said. "It was loud. Really loud. At least to me."

  Charlie's enthusiasm dimmed slightly. "David, dude, there wasn't a scream. It just collapsed. Are you sure you're OK?"

  David tried to explain through the lingering pain. "I heard it through... the other sense. The one that picks up the Nath. It was like a psychic scream. It hurt some, startled me a lot."

  Mark helped him to his feet. "Can you continue? We can get out of here if you need to."

  David shook his head, immediately regretted it as the motion sent spikes of pain through his skull. "No. I'll be fine. Just give me a second."

  But his analyst brain was working through the implications even as his body recovered from the assault.

  The scream. The psychic frequency. A Nath death cry. But why had this one cried out? What was different about it? Was it more like the ghost he had faced in the white room? Was that why the others behaved like dogs and this one walked?

  He was broken out of his musing by the others, specifically Camila.

  "Charlie, Katie, grab food and water," Camila directed. "Anything nonperishable. Mark, check the pharmacy section for medical supplies. David, are you OK to help or do you need to wait by the door?"

  “I’m OK, I just want to figure out why the last one was different. It moved differently, more like us and it made ‘noise’ when it died. I wonder why?”

  “Madre de Dios, it doesn’t matter now. We need to see if we can find the keys to either of the big vehicles and we need to find ways to load more supplies.”

  David shook himself, she was right. He turned towards the door to the stock room.

  The next few minutes were full of intense exuberant activity as the group overcame their reservations and acquired supplies aggressively, OK they were looting.

  “Hey, I found trash bags in the back – you can just sweep stuff off the shelves into them.” David made his first contribution.

  “We don’t have that much space in the cars! Do we take the drinks or rely on the water staying on?” Charlie added.

  “Guys, we really need to find the keys to one of those trucks outside, then we could basically sweep everything.” Mark’s arms were full of medical supplies, and he was trying to juggle them into a trash bag to go back for more.

  “OK, I checked the van by the gas pumps, it’s locked. We need to check people’s pockets…” Camila updated everyone when she came back in from running supplies out to David’s car.

  “Depending on our luck it’s either the guys outside, who looked like workmen or the zombie from the stock room – probably has keys to the delivery truck given he was stocking.”

  Charlie spoke up “OK, I’ll go check the guy in the stock room, I wanna see if they have some flats of energy drinks anyway.”

  “I guess that leaves me with the guys out front.” David headed outside carrying a trash bag which he has swept a load or snacks into, making sure to grab all of his favorites.

  Once he dropped the bag into the back of his car he nodded grimly, they were filling up fast, he couldn’t help but think that scale was the biggest problem they had.

  Going through the now deceased zombies’ pockets was not nice. The smell was bad and fluid leakage or crispy seemed to be his options. He resorted to using a screwdriver to help while trying to keep the mess and smell from making him throw up.

  Which explained why he almost missed it, a soft distant murmuring, almost like arriving late to a party and hearing people socializing through the front door before you even ring the bell.

  David's head whipped around as he realized what he was hearing. No shambling corpses in sight. That was good. He paused, really listening and a chill crawled up his back.

  Lots of distant voices. Suddenly all the pieces clicked together. The scream. Lots of distant voices, different creatures somehow. The tiers implied by the herald. Forget zombies for a second, these things were like insects.

  They had killed a fucking canary. Or more accurately a sentry. Who had raised the alarm, and they didn’t even realize it. Because it was meant to be a silent alarm, only he could hear it…

  He rushed back in just as Charlie burst triumphantly out the stockroom. “I got them! Keys for the Panel Van, and this isn’t the last stop there is a load of stuff pre-loaded! Engines running now and it has most of a tank of gas. Only, I’ve never driven something that big…”

  “We have to move, NOW!” David’s shout halted all activity. All eyes turned to him.

  "The scream," David said. "I think it was a signal. I'm hearing more of them. More whispers. They're coming. Lots of them."

  Katie went pale. "How many?"

  "I don't know," David admitted. "But we need to grab what we can and get out of here. Fast."

  The group moved immediately, the urgency in David's voice cutting through any questions or debate.

  “Who can drive the van Charlie found?” Camila started firing questions out rapidly.

  “I can.” Mark responded immediately.

  “Go, pull round to the front right now. Take Charlie with you and throw what you are carrying now in there.”

  “Katie, Camila we have to get the survivors loaded – we can’t leave them here.”

  “Dios Mio, you’re right David.”

  With that everyone scurried to get ready to evacuate.