Caine halted just before the shattered glass doors that marked the exit of the Kronos Corps facility. A cold wind seeped through the broken entrance, carrying with it the mingled scents of rain, ash, and a faint metallic tang.
Then it happened—
Fzzzt—krrrrk—chhk.
A burst of static shattered the silence, sharp and abrupt, causing him to stop mid-step. He turned his head slightly, his eyes narrowing toward the reception desk, where a flickering television screen suddenly roared to life. What had been a haze of broken static now flickered with faint, distorted color. A face began to emerge from the interference.
"...—if you're seeing this, it means containment has failed."
The voice was hoarse and strained, yet undeniably human. The image cleared enough to reveal a man in a blood-streaked white lab coat. An ID badge hung askew from his chest: Dr. Elias Ramirez, Senior Bioengineering Director. Behind him loomed the Kronos Corps insignia, smeared and scorched, while flames licked faintly at the edges of the room.
Caine stepped closer. The low hum of the television blended with the erratic buzz of the overhead lights, which struggled to stay lit. The broadcast appeared to be on a loop, an automated message stubbornly fulfilling its final duty: to warn, or to confess.
"I... I wanted to help humanity," the doctor stammered, his voice trembling. "To meet the unrelenting energy demands of our civilization. To lift us out of scarcity. To create something... extraordinary."
He hesitated, lowering his head as the flickering firelight reflected off the lenses of his glasses. When he looked up again, his eyes were red and hollow. His hand shook as he gripped the edge of the desk for support.
"We believed we had succeeded," he continued, his words rushing out now as a dark discoloration crept up his arm and into his neck.
It was evident he had been bitten and was in the midst of turning, using his final moments to beg for forgiveness.
"We had no idea... how could we..." Dr. Ramirez mumbled as the infection reached his carotid artery, and his voice began to distort audibly.
"Forgive... me... forgive... us..." He barely finished the sentence before convulsing violently, falling from his chair to the floor, where he writhed as blood streamed from his eyes, mouth, and nose. Finally, he went still as the infection overtook his brain.
"Hrrrrrrrahhhhh!" Suddenly, the doctor growled, crawling on all fours for a moment before rising to his full height, his undead state clear in the recording. He lurched through the room, eventually finding the exit door, at which point the video abruptly restarted.
Caine's brows furrowed in a deep frown, adding to the already fearsome image of his blood-and-gore-streaked figure.
Initially, he had sought the doctor for revenge, but the sight of the man's lifeless body filled him with an unexpected sense of emptiness. With a heavy sigh, he grabbed the blood-smeared door handle and pulled it open.
As the door swung wide, a cacophony of chaotic sights, sounds, and smells overwhelmed him. The city was under siege, its streets teeming with undead that littered the ground like fallen leaves. Their glowing red eyes darted ceaselessly, scanning the surroundings in search of prey. It didn't take long for one of them to notice Caine stepping out from the front door of Kronos Corps.
With a guttural, rasping roar, the zombie alerted the nearby horde, which immediately turned its collective gaze toward Caine, their predatory stares locking onto him as if he were a feast waiting to be devoured.
"Shit..." Caine muttered under his breath, spinning on his heel and sprinting in the opposite direction as the ravenous zombies began closing in on him with alarming speed.
"These aren't the Romero zombies," he thought, swiping his hand across a zombie's head to shove it aside. The skull crumbled under the unexpected force of his blow, his newfound strength, enhanced by the infection and the nanobots now coursing through his veins in place of blood, making such feats effortless.
BANG!
Caine leapt onto a car parked along the roadside, using the added height to spring over a ledge with ease. He slammed into a far wall, sliding down with such intensity that he could hear the grinding of bones in his shoulder as they absorbed the impact, along with the tearing of fabric and flesh as he slid downward before landing on another vehicle's roof.
BOOM!
The sudden weight caused the car's roof to cave inward, leaving two deep footprints embedded in its once-pristine surface.
Caine scanned his surroundings, finding no zombies in his immediate vicinity. He began to move off the vehicle, advancing cautiously to avoid being swarmed.
BANG!
Suddenly, the sound of something crashing behind him echoed sharply. Turning back, he saw one of the zombies from above struggling to rise, its fall having broken its spine, leaving only its neck mobile.
BANG!
BANG!
Two more crashes followed, smashing directly onto the paralyzed zombie and reducing it to a pulp of infected flesh. The remaining zombies, uninjured thanks to the softened fall, began searching for Caine.
The first zombie lunged forward, its fingers curled like hooked knives aiming for Caine's throat. He pivoted sharply, his movements a blur in the rain, and drove his elbow into its jaw. The impact shattered bone with a sickening crack, sending the corpse sprawling back into the others surging behind it.
Caine didn't pause to watch it fall. He turned and sprinted down the cracked asphalt, his boots splashing through puddles of stagnant water mingled with streaks of blood. The once-bustling city street was now a desolate graveyard, overturned cars, shattered glass, and flickering neon signs buzzing defiantly in the shadow of the apocalypse.
His heart thundered, but it wasn't fear. His muscles burned with a vitality that went beyond mere adrenaline. The nanites coursing through his veins ignited like wildfire, rapidly repairing bruises and cuts from his earlier battles. He could feel them shifting beneath his skin, a subtle crawling sensation that might have unnerved him once but now filled him with grim determination.
"Faster," he commanded himself, his breath steady even as the horde's howls grew louder behind him. "Don't stop."
He vaulted over a wrecked taxi, the crunch of glass under his boots echoing as he landed. Behind him, the undead flooded the intersection, dozens, perhaps hundreds, their jerky but relentless movements driven by his scent. Their glowing red eyes pierced the darkness like scattered embers, unwavering and menacing.
One leapt onto the hood of a nearby car. Caine reacted instantly, his arm snapping backward on instinct and catching the creature mid-air. His hand clamped around its skull, and with a brutal twist, he snapped its neck with a crack like dry wood.
The lifeless corpse slid from his grip, only for another to take its place almost immediately.
"Persistent bastards," he muttered under his breath.
Turning sharply, he slipped into a narrow alleyway, the stench of decay assaulting his senses but granting temporary refuge. Pressing against the damp wall, he cautiously peered around the corner, evaluating his next move. The rain intensified, washing streaks of blood from his jacket and exposing the metallic shimmer beneath, nanites shifting fluidly under the skin of his forearms, glinting like liquid mercury.
He drew a slow, measured breath.
Then he ran again.
The alley spilled into a desolate street lined with dilapidated warehouses. One building stood out, its rusted doors ajar and barely intact, with a faded sign above reading Dawson Freight & Logistics. He darted toward it, weaving through the lifeless bodies strewn across the sidewalk.
The door groaned in protest as he pushed it open and stepped inside.
Within, the noise of the outside world faded into silence.
The cavernous warehouse stretched endlessly, thick with the smell of oil and years of dust. Moonlight filtered through holes in the ceiling, casting pale shafts of light onto toppled crates and forklifts abandoned mid-task. Scattered across the floor were bodies, workers, judging by their uniforms, some gruesomely torn apart, others disturbingly untouched.
Caine moved silently through the labyrinth of shadows, ears straining for any sound beyond his own shallow breathing. Each step he took echoed faintly in the eerie stillness.
"Need to find another way out," he murmured under his breath.
His gaze landed on a maintenance door near the far wall. He started toward it, but a sudden metallic clatter froze him in place. Something was there. Something had moved.
From behind a stack of containers came the unmistakable sound of something wet being dragged across the floor. The noise repeated, then echoed again, sending a chill through the air.
Caine turned slowly, his body tense and ready for action. The dragging sounds grew louder, joined by an irregular cadence of footsteps reverberating off the steel walls, forming a macabre rhythm that filled the cavernous space.
The first figure emerged from the shadows: a warehouse worker, or rather, what remained of one, clad in a shredded orange vest. Its head jerked unnaturally as it shuffled forward. Then another figure appeared, and another, their grotesque forms lurching toward him. They had tracked him here.
Caine let out a resigned sigh, settling into a defensive stance. "Five seconds of peace was too much to ask for, wasn't it?"
He surged forward before the horde could encircle him, slamming his boot into the lead zombie's chest. The impact hurled it backward into two others, the sickening crunch of splintering bones echoing in the dim light. Another lunged from his flank, but he spun sharply, driving his fist through its skull in a spray of black ichor that splattered across the concrete floor.
The guttural screams of the remaining creatures filled the air as they charged at him en masse.
Ducking beneath a clumsy swipe, Caine seized a rusted crowbar from the belt of a fallen worker. With a fierce upward swing, he struck a zombie's jaw, ripping away half its face. He pivoted swiftly, plunging the opposite end of the crowbar into another creature's skull, the metallic clang reverberating through the warehouse.
Yet for every undead he took down, more swarmed forward, their numbers seemingly endless.
His movements blurred into a whirlwind of fists, knees, and steel, seamlessly synchronized. The nanites coursing through his body reacted on instinct, reinforcing muscles and accelerating reflexes. For a fleeting moment, he felt untouchable, until he wasn't.
A powerful blow struck him from behind, driving him forward. He spun around, baring his teeth, and spotted a hulking figure emerging from the shadows, an armored soldier like the one he had previously fought, but larger and more menacing. Its eyes glowed intensely, its jaw completely absent, with cables and sinew hanging grotesquely where flesh once was.
"Shit."
The mutant bellowed and charged. Caine narrowly sidestepped, its massive fist slamming into a steel crate with a deafening crash, the force sending nearby zombies sprawling. Seizing the moment, Caine struck back, driving the crowbar into the creature's knee joint. Metal screeched as the joint buckled, but the monster remained upright. It swung again; Caine ducked and rolled, coming up behind it, and wrapped the crowbar around its neck, pulling with every ounce of his nanite-enhanced strength.
The nanites pulsed beneath his skin, faintly illuminating the veins in his forearms. With a primal roar, he twisted.
SNAP.
The creature collapsed to the ground, its head twisted at an unnatural angle. Breathing heavily, Caine let the lifeless body fall.
For a brief moment, silence reigned, broken only by the soft drip of rain seeping through the ceiling.
Then came a low, haunting moan.
Another silhouette appeared, then another, followed by a rising chorus. Caine looked up, his eyes widening as more figures emerged on the upper catwalks, their glowing eyes descending one by one. The entire horde had followed him inside. They crawled across the walls and over the railings, pouring through shattered skylights like a flood of corpses.
He took a step back, his grip tightening on the crowbar in his hand.
"Well, I guess we're doing this the hard way."
Caine retreated toward the center of the warehouse as the undead closed in from all directions. Their growls rose into a deafening, primal chorus, reverberating off the metal and concrete like the heartbeat of the apocalypse.
His jaw tightened as the nanites beneath his skin pulsed brighter, reacting to his adrenaline, forming faint metallic veins that spread across his neck and hands.
"Alright," he growled. "Let's see what you've got."
The horde screamed in unison and charged.
The crowbar swung with ferocity. Bones splintered and shattered. The warehouse lights flickered violently.
As the undead swarmed him, Caine's roar thundered through the cavernous space, overpowering even the raging storm outside.
The storm had dwindled into a gentle drizzle, each droplet tapping against the ravaged cityscape. Smoke spiraled from burning cars and shattered storefronts, curling upward like civilization's final exhale. The streets lay in an eerie quiet, broken only by the occasional distant scream or the faint, hollow clatter of debris shifting in the wind.
In the distance stood the warehouse, its jagged roofline etched darkly against the stormy sky. Blood and soot smeared the front wall, while the massive rolling door hung bent inward as if struck by a wrecking ball. Beneath layers of grime and scorch marks, the words DAWSON FREIGHT & LOGISTICS could barely be discerned, their letters partly obliterated.
Through the haze and rubble, a group of survivors cautiously approached.
Seven figures moved forward, four soldiers clad in mismatched, battered armor, and three civilians trailing close behind, clutching improvised weapons: a crowbar, a hatchet, a length of pipe. Their eyes darted nervously to every shadow, hands gripping their weapons with white-knuckled intensity.
"Stay low," ordered Sergeant Miles Granger, his gravelly voice cutting through the tension. A grizzled veteran, his patchy beard framed a face haunted by exhaustion. His torn, filthy uniform stood in stark contrast to his meticulously maintained rifle, still spotless despite the chaos. "Thermal scans showed movement inside about ten minutes ago. Could be a cluster."
"Cluster?" whispered Leah, a thin, trembling civilian clutching her weapon tightly. "You mean… infected?"
"Most likely," Granger said grimly, gesturing for his soldiers to spread out. "We clear them, secure the area, and move on. That's the job."
The group advanced slowly, boots splashing through shallow puddles tinged red. As they neared the warehouse entrance, the air grew thick with the metallic stench of death, a suffocating odor that clung to their throats and refused to let go.
Private Jenkins, the youngest of the squad, gagged, his face twisting in disgust. "Jesus… smells like hell in there."
"Hell doesn't stink this bad," Granger muttered grimly. "On my mark, we breach."
The survivors moved into position, two kneeling, two standing, rifles locked on the warped doorway. A group of civilians crouched behind a charred sedan, seeking shelter from the chaos.
Granger raised his hand, signaling silently.
Three.
Two.
One—
CRASH.
The signal never came. The warehouse door erupted outward with a deafening roar. A mutilated, blood-soaked body flew through the air, landing on the rain-slicked pavement with a sickening thud. It skidded several feet before coming to a halt, its skull crushed, and its eyes hanging grotesquely from their sockets. Tendrils of steam rose where the cold rain met the still-warm flesh.
Every weapon snapped upward in unison.
"What the—?! CONTACT!" Jenkins yelled, his finger tightening against the trigger.
And then he appeared.
Caine Williams stepped into the light, an unholy vision dragged straight from a nightmare. His once-human body shimmered in the rain, slick with blood and gleaming with unnatural strength. Every muscle bulged with terrifying precision, his skin marked with streaks of dried and fresh blood like macabre war paint. His medium-length hair, matted with gore and rain, clung to his skull, framing eyes that glowed an eerie, radioactive green beneath the filth.
Caine took a single step forward, a smile on his face as he was glad to finally see humans.
BANG!