My pn worked better than I expected, but that didn’t mean I liked where we ended up.

  We stood in a creepy-ass hallway, dimly lit by flickering emergency lights, the air thick with the scent of decay, rust, and chemicals. The walls were lined with cracked biohazard signs, and old bloodstains streaked the floor like someone had been dragged kicking and screaming.

  I knew this pce.

  A CDC b.

  I hated CDC bs. Too many pces to get trapped, too many failed "experiments" lurking in the dark. These pces were the breeding grounds of nightmares.

  I flexed my fingers inside my Skullcrackers—brass knuckles with nails welded on, my personal brand of zombie extermination. My wrist-mounted crossbow was ready, but I had no idea if it’d be enough.

  We moved forward, searching for an exit, but then—

  A sound.

  It started as a faint, warped scream, distant but unnatural. Like someone crying out from a broken radio.

  Then it got louder.

  And louder.

  Until the walls themselves seemed to tremble with the agonized echoes of the past.

  Cire stiffened beside me, her rifle held tight. "What the hell is that?"

  Greg took a shaky step back. "I—uh—I don’t think we should be here, guys."

  For once, I actually agreed with him.

  Then, from around the corner, something lurched into view.

  And my stomach dropped.

  It was a Merger—one of the grotesque fusion monsters created when the government decided nuking the infected was a good idea. But this wasn’t just any Merger.

  It was Patient Zero.

  I knew his face. We all did.

  Nelson Vary.

  Before the Dawn, he’d been a reporter. The first to cover the outbreak. The one who stood in front of the CDC, broadcasting to the world as the virus ripped through the facility behind him. He’d been the first live-streamed death of the apocalypse.

  And now, he was merged with his own signature item—a sor-powered pyback device, welded into the rotting flesh of his chest.

  And it was still pying.

  The same screams.

  The first outbreak on loop.

  Three years.

  That bloodcurdling chorus had been pying for three years.

  Nelson’s rotting head snapped toward us, his milky eyes locking onto mine. His mouth twitched, jaw half-unhinged, before he spoke.

  "Innnnnnnfeeeccct."

  His voice was wrong. Twisted. A mix of old recordings and something inhuman beneath it.

  My blood turned to ice.

  I wanted to fight. I wanted to raise my Skullcrackers and beat his decayed face into paste, but for once, my instincts screamed something different.

  Run.

  And judging by how fast Cire and Greg turned tail, they had the same idea.

  We bolted.

  Greg was faster—I swear that guy would push his own grandma down to save himself. And he proved it.

  Because as we ran down the hall, he shoved me.

  Right toward Nelson.

  It happened so fast, I barely had time to react. One second, I was sprinting, the next—I was stumbling forward, right into the outstretched, rotten arms of the thing that should have died years ago.

  "Nate!"

  Cire grabbed my arm and yanked me back just as Nelson's gnarled fingers swiped at my throat. I staggered, heart hammering, and nearly ate floor, but somehow, I stayed upright.

  Greg, the backstabbing coward, didn’t even look back.

  I wasn’t sure what pissed me off more—the zombie apocalypse, Nelson’s horrifying soundtrack, or the fact that I was definitely going to have to punch Greg in the face when this was over.

  But for now?

  We ran like hell.

  We took a sharp turn, nearly tripping over scattered debris as the hallway narrowed. The emergency lights above flickered violently, casting jagged shadows against the walls. The screams from Nelson’s recorder kept growing, blending with his warped, choking moans as he staggered after us.

  And the worst part?

  He was fast.

  Most zombies shuffled, moaned, dragged themselves forward like they had all the time in the world. Not Nelson.

  He lunged.

  Every few steps, his decayed legs propelled him forward with terrifying speed, his twisted body jerking like a marionette controlled by something wrong.

  “Left! Left!” I shouted.

  Cire skidded into a turn, leading us into another corridor, this one lined with broken gss chambers—some filled with long-dead test subjects, their skeletal remains fused with metal from whatever the CDC had been experimenting on.

  I didn’t want to know what they’d been trying to do.

  I just wanted out.

  But the exit wasn’t in sight.

  And Nelson was still coming.

  "damn it!" I hissed. I spun, raising my crossbow, and fired.

  The bolt hit Nelson in the shoulder—but it barely slowed him down. The Merger barely noticed as he let out a gurgled, static-filled wheeze and kept coming.

  "That did nothing!" Cire yelled.

  "I can see that!"

  I grabbed another bolt, sliding it into pce, but Nelson was already closing the distance.

  I had one shot left before he was on me.

  My fingers twitched over the trigger.

  Then a door burst open to my right.

  Greg.

  The bastard was standing there, eyes wide, waving frantically. "In here! Now!"

  Cire sprinted past me first.

  I hesitated. I wanted to punch Greg in the throat for pushing me into that nightmare, but Nelson was about three seconds from tearing my face off, so I swallowed my pride and bolted inside.

  Greg smmed the door shut behind us.

  But Nelson hit it immediately, the impact shaking the frame.

  The screams from his recorder howled from the other side as his rotting fists pounded the steel.

  Greg panted. "Okay. Okay, that was—holy shit—what the hell was that?!"

  "Patient Zero," Cire gasped. "Nelson Vary."

  Greg’s face went pale. "That was him? That was the—oh, we are so screwed—"

  The door dented inward.

  Cire took a step back. "We need to go. Now."

  I flexed my hands. I was done running.

  "No."

  Cire turned to me, confused. "What do you mean, ‘no’?"

  I exhaled, adjusting the Skullcrackers on my fists. "I mean, this poor bastard has been screaming in agony for three years. He’s still trapped in there. I’m putting him out of his misery."

  Cire hesitated, then nodded.

  Greg, of course, backed toward the nearest exit. "You’re crazy. You’re both crazy—"

  I kicked the door open.

  Nelson lunged—

  I dodged, twisting around him, and smmed my Skullcrackers into the side of his head.

  The nails tore into his rotting flesh, but I didn’t stop.

  I drove him backward, blow after blow, the jagged metal punching deep into decayed bone and flesh. The screams of his recorder warped, glitching out from the impact, but I kept going.

  One.

  Two.

  Three more hits—

  Then I grabbed his colr, yanked him forward—

  And with a final, brutal swing, I caved his skull in.

  Nelson colpsed, his body finally still.

  And then, for the first time in three years—

  The screaming stopped.