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THE SKIN MAN
Everything Evolves Book 1
UPGRADE THE DEAD
BREAK THE LIVING
Tony Sarrecchia
The Skin Man: Everything Evolves, Book 1
© 2025 Tony Sarrecchia
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews, articles, or scholarly works.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published by Pen 2 Parchment Press
Cover Design by Pen 2 Parchment Press
First Edition: [September 2025]
For more information, visit:
Printed in the United States of America
For Jo-SHMILY
Chapter 1: The One Who Smiled
Part 1: The Girl with the Rifle
The first thing he saw was the butt of the rifle.
It swung through the air like a comet and caved in the reanimate’s skull with a wet, decisive crunch. Bone and gray matter sprayed across the floor. The thing dropped beside him, twitching on the tile. The girl who swung the rifle didn’t look at him—just stepped over the corpse like she was checking off a chore. Her blue ponytail was dark with sweat, her flannel shirt smeared with blood and something darker.
She raised the rifle again. Two more reanimates were staggering through the broken glass doors.
“You want to live?” she snapped, eyes fixed forward.
The guy from Jersey blinked up at her, still crouched behind the overturned table. His glasses were gone. One shoe, too. His sock was soaked with someone else’s blood.
“Y-yeah.”
“Then move.”
She fired once—crack!—then again. The echoes rang through the student center. Two bodies dropped.
They ran. The reanimates had been around for at least a year but they’d kept mostly to the cities and the news reports said the Feds had it under control. If this was under control, Matt didn’t want to see out of control.
Outside, the campus green had become a war zone. Sirens still wailed somewhere far off, but the campus itself had gone unnervingly quiet. Cars sat abandoned at strange angles. A burning police cruiser lit the sidewalk in twitching orange, casting warped shadows as reanimates dragged themselves through the grass. Some were fast. Most weren’t. But all of them had that look—hunger wrapped in human skin.
This wasn’t supposed to happen; KSU was supposed to be a green zone, Matt thought.
She moved with the caution of someone who’d hunted before. He stumbled after her, lungs burning, the slap of mismatched feet loud in his ears. His mind kept catching on snapshots: his roommate screaming in the stairwell. A girl he’d kissed once at a frat party lunging at him, teeth first. Her lips had still been glossy.
He wasn’t built for this.
She clearly was.
“What’s your name?” he asked between breaths as they slipped behind a maintenance shed.
She was already reloading. “Brielle.”
“I’m—”
“Tell me later...if you live long enough.”
They cut through the back of the kinesiology building. She grabbed a crowbar from a janitor’s closet and tossed it to him without slowing.
“Swing hard. Hit the head. Don’t wait to see if it worked.”
“I’ve never—I’m a computer science major.”
“And what? You think I majored in killing deaders? Fight or die, that’s your choice. You’ve had two years to grow teeth. Use ’em”
A shrill whoop shattered the moment. The fire alarm lit up the hall with a pulse of red.
Too late to figure out why.
The dead outside were already turning toward the sound like it was a dinner bell.
They fought through three more reanimates to reach her truck—a mud-crusted Tacoma with a cracked windshield and a rifle rack behind the seat. She drove like the devil himself was chasing them, tires screaming out of the lot, past the shattered Kennesaw State sign. The rearview mirror showed the campus shrinking into fire and shadow.
She didn’t speak until they were halfway down Chastain Road.
“You said you were from Jersey.”
“Yeah,” he managed. “Came down for school. Wasn’t expecting the zombie apocalypse.”
She didn’t laugh. Just kept her eyes on the road.
“I’ve got a cabin,” she said. “Up at Red Top. Wood Stove, well water, canned food. If we make it there before sunset, we might live through the night.”
“Might?”
She glanced at him for the first time. Her eyes were steady and pale. “You ever spent a night in the woods with things that don’t die easy?”
“Never spent a night in the woods. Slept in a parking lot once to buy concert tickets.”
She nodded. “Then yeah—might.”
Part 2: Suburban Gauntlet
The farther they got from campus, the quieter the world became. Not peaceful quiet—wrong quiet. Chastain Road, usually jammed with honking commuters and Chick-fil-A lines, was a mess of stalled cars and broken glass. Smears of something dark and sticky stretched across the pavement like crime scene brushstrokes. Brielle swerved around a wrecked sedan with a corpse slumped against the wheel. No seatbelt. No face.
Some houses still glowed from within. TVs murmured cartoons to empty rooms. A breeze rattled a wind chime over a porch smeared with red handprints.
One neighborhood had trash fires at every corner. Another had signs: STAY BACK and WE’RE ARMED in crooked, red-painted letters. Matt caught a glimpse of movement in an upstairs window—a silhouette, just watching.
Brielle gripped the wheel like she meant to strangle it.
“You think it is this bad everywhere?” he asked.
He’d told her his name—twice now. Matt. She hadn’t used it. He was starting to wonder if she ever would.
“Far as I can tell,” she muttered. “My cousin in Florida went dark last night. Group texts are chaos. Half the people say it’s a virus. Other half think it’s the end times.”
“What do you think?”
She hesitated. “I think we’ve got maybe two hours of daylight and one tank of gas. The only way to stay alive is to keep moving.”
He nodded, though it didn’t feel like much of an answer. Just something people said when they didn’t want to look scared.
The truck passed a subdivision that looked like it had been prepping for a party—streamers tangled in the trees, balloons drifting like ghosts across the lawn. A kid’s bike lay abandoned in front of a blood-smeared bounce house.
The silence buzzed in his ears.
At a clogged intersection near Acworth, the Tacoma lurched.
“Shit,” Brielle muttered, pulling over fast. She killed the engine.
Matt looked behind them. “What was that?”
“Could’ve been a body. Or a trap.”
They got out slow. The air smelled like ozone and old meat.
It wasn’t a body. A homemade tire strip—tent poles, nails, duct tape—lay twisted in the road.
The front tire hissed and slumped.
“Deliberate,” she said.
Matt stared. “So they’re not all dead.”
“No,” she said, scanning the rooftops. “Some of them are worse.”
He swallowed. “Should we talk to them?”
She looked at him like he’d just asked if they should pet a rabid coyote.
“You ever walk through a block controlled by a rival gang?”
“I grew up in Hope,” he said. “That’s...in New Jersey. My biggest threat was the HOA.”
“Then no,” she said flatly. “We don’t talk to them. Not unless you want to catch a round to the noggin.”
She popped the truck bed and pulled out a go-bag and a rolled-up camo tarp.
“Back way it is,” she said. “We cut through these houses. Stay low, stay quiet, and don’t argue.”
The homes were husks—empty of people, full of aftermath. A barricaded door made of duct-taped furniture. A shattered picture frame in the entryway. Flies buzzed around something slumped in the hallway.
In a baby’s room, the monitor still crackled static.
They didn’t talk.
Matt paused in one living room, staring at a wall of family photos: Christmas mornings, Little
League trophies, a golden retriever dressed as a pirate. A normal life. A life like his.
“They were just—” he started.
Brielle grabbed his sleeve. Not unkind, but firm.
“They’re gone,” she said. “You will be too if you don’t keep moving.”
He didn’t argue.
This time, he didn’t even look back.
Part 3: The Thing That Didn’t Die Right
They were back on the street when a scream split the stillness—ragged and wet, like a saxophone carved from lungs, played with agony instead of air.
They froze.
Breath hitched. Eyes scanned the shadows. The world narrowed.
It twitched beneath a flickering street lamp, half-shadow, half-nightmare. Maybe it had been human once. Now it looked melted—limbs too long, spine warped like plastic left in fire. Its joints bent the wrong way, jerking in bursts, as if yanked by invisible strings.
Its jaw gaped open obscenely. The hinges were shattered. Rows of jagged teeth lined a raw, wet hole that pulsed with breathless hunger. Behind the first row, a second set quivered, gnashing in spasmodic bursts like a meat grinder chewing on air.
The skin around its chest swelled and contracted, bulging like something alive writhed beneath it. Something trying to claw its way out.
Another cry echoed from the woods. Higher this time. More tortured.
“What the hell is that?” Matt whispered, voice trembling. His hands clenched the crowbar until his knuckles burned.
Brielle didn’t answer right away. Her fingers flexed on the grip of her gun.
“The wrong kind of dead,” she said at last. “We run. Now.”
They bolted.
Fences scraped their arms as they vaulted over them. Branches lashed their faces. Hedges clawed at their clothes. The yards blurred past in a chaos of motion and shadow.
The thing chased them with hideous speed—its gait jerky and insectile, limbs snapping forward in twitching lunges. It moved like a puppet yanked by something blind and furious.
Brielle spun mid-stride and fired twice. One round punched through its chest; the other shredded its shoulder in a burst of thick, tar-colored blood.
The thing didn’t stumble.
Its cry turned frenzied—part scream, part roar, part something Matt couldn’t name. He risked a glance and immediately regretted it. It was closer.
Too close.
Brielle stopped suddenly, pivoted, and fired again—this time low. The bullet tore through its knee. The leg collapsed sideways with a meaty crack. The creature crumpled, shrieking, but still it clawed forward.
Matt surged toward it, raw panic overriding thought. He screamed—an ugly, feral sound—and swung the crowbar with both hands.
It crunched into the creature’s skull.
Bone splintered wetly. Black fluid gushed out in thick pulses. The body jerked once, then lay still.
For a second, they stood in stunned silence.
Then Brielle grabbed his arm, and they ran.
They didn’t stop until the screams—the other screams—faded behind them, swallowed by trees and distance.
Matt finally collapsed to one knee, chest heaving, arms trembling violently. His face was pale, lips parted in disbelief.
“That...” He shook his head. “That wasn’t a deader; that was something from The Thing.
Brielle scanned the tree line. Her voice was flat and grim. “That was something trying to change—and getting it horribly wrong.”
Part 4: Dead Air
They pushed into the dense woods, branches clawing at their faces and brambles tearing tiny streaks of blood across their skin. Brielle led them down a narrow, twisting deer trail tangled with
long-dead kudzu vines, brittle yet sharp as razor wire.
The silence grew heavy, oppressive. Thick. Like sacks of mud on their chests.
All around them stood deaders, pale shapes camouflaged by shadow and trees, swaying in unison, like weeds underwater. Empty eyes glistened, tracking their every step. Their heads tilted slowly, synchronized, as if controlled by something unseen and malicious.
Matt’s breath shivered, his voice barely audible. “Why aren't they attacking?”
“Don’t know,” Brielle said through clenched teeth. Her eyes flickered from figure to figure, finger tense on the trigger. “Don’t wanna find out. Keep moving.”
They crept forward, nerves straining beneath the weight of each silent footfall. Every crackle of leaves beneath their boots echoed like thunder, each heartbeat painfully loud. When the trees finally thinned, opening on a gravel shoulder near the entrance to Red Top, their relief was short-lived.
Smoke curled upward from the distant ridge, dark and ominous against the pale, haunted sky.
Matt froze. “Someone else is here.”
“Survivors, maybe.” Brielle’s grip tightened on her weapon. Her voice dropped to a grim whisper.
“Or something worse.”
Part 5: The Long Night
They crawled beneath the skeletal remains of a collapsed hunting blind, the scent of mildew and rot thick in the air. No fire. No light. Just the weak starlight filtering through cracks in warped plywood and the sound of their own breathing. Brielle strung tripwire bells around the perimeter—tiny sentinels trembling in the dark.
Just past midnight, the bells chimed. Once. Twice. Then silence.
They froze.
Something moved outside—slow and careful. Not stumbling like a deader. This was calculated. A twig snapped. Then another. Each one spaced out like punctuation in a language meant to terrify.
It didn’t groan. Didn’t hiss. It circled.
Matt’s muscles locked. Breath shallow. He strained to hear. Nothing. Then too much. Then the silence again, wide and endless. Hours passed in that way—dragging behind eyelids that refused to close. Somewhere in the distance, an owl cried. But closer, nothing.
Eventually, the stillness began to lift. A dull gray light seeped into the sky, just enough to break the grip of night.
Matt swallowed hard. “That… wasn’t a deader.”
“No,” Brielle said softly, eyes on the treeline. “It wasn’t.”
Matt shivered and swallowed hard, the truth sinking in like cold lead. He’d never been cut out for country life.
Part 6: Red Top
At dawn, the cabin emerged from the mist like an apparition—hidden behind curtains of kudzu, windows boarded tight. Secure. Or close enough.
Brielle’s breathing eased as she slid a key from the chain around her neck. The rusted lock gave way with a reluctant creak. Inside, the air smelled of wood and gun oil. A cold wood stove sat in the corner. Cans and ammo lined the shelves. A dusty shortwave radio rested quiet.
Matt collapsed into a chair, legs giving out all at once. His face was pale, his breath shallow. Something between a sob and a laugh caught in his throat.
“I can’t believe we actually made it.”
“We haven’t,” Brielle said, scanning the room.
She tossed him the first-aid kit. “Wrap that foot. Boots in the closet. If you go septic, I’m not dragging your ass anywhere.”
Matt didn’t argue. He peeled off his shredded sock, trying not to gag. Pain flared. Shame followed—hot and sour. He’d come south for college. Now he was learning how to survive by inches.
Then—a thud. Heavy. Above them.
Dust sifted from the rafters.
They froze.
Another thump. Closer this time. Something heavy shifting its weight.
Matt’s eyes snapped upward. “No way,” he whispered.
Brielle didn’t answer. She slung the rifle, drew a knife, and climbed onto the counter. She tapped the ceiling with the hilt—once, twice. No response.
She reached for the pull-string. The attic hatch creaked open. A ladder unfolded, groaning with age. Dust spiraled down like ash.
She looked at Matt. “Stay here.”
“Yeah,” he croaked. “Good plan.”
Knife in hand, she climbed into the dark.
The attic was still. Air thick with cedar, mold, and something metallic. Shapes loomed—boxes, draped furniture, a half-finished deer mount.
Then—movement. Behind the boxes.
Brielle froze.
A soft, wet click.
She flicked her flashlight on just as it lunged.
It wasn’t human. Wasn’t quite deader either. Its face was worn down—cheeks stretched too tight, eyes clouded, mouth stitched shut with wire and hair. Its limbs were warped and broken, but it crawled fast. Hands replaced with makeshift claws—pliers, a screwdriver fused into flesh.
It moaned without breath.
Brielle kicked it hard, sent it crashing back. She dropped through the hatch. The thing tumbled after her with a fleshy thud.
Matt screamed and scrambled away as it writhed on the floor, leaking black fluid.
Brielle didn’t hesitate. One shot between the eyes.
Silence.
Matt stared, wide-eyed. “What the hell was that?”
She crouched by the corpse, inspecting the embedded tools, the surgical wire, the way its limbs had been reshaped.
“Somebody did this,” she muttered.
“You mean, like… experimented on it?”
“No,” she said, quiet and cold. “Like someone built it.”
Part 7: Broadcast
It took nearly an hour before they were calm enough to move. Matt found the strength to bury the thing in a shallow grave behind the shed. Brielle covered the cabin windows with blackout tarps, then turned to the shortwave radio.
It hadn’t worked in years.
Or so she thought.
But when she twisted the dial, it buzzed.
A faint signal. Static, then a voice—choppy, but human.
“...north of Allatoona... repeat, we are secured at Blue Ridge Dam. Survivors, do not approach cities. Major outbreak centers: Atlanta, Savannah, Macon...”
Matt bolted upright. “They’re alive. Real people!”
Brielle frowned. “That’s over an hour north. Mountain roads. If they’re still clear.”
“We have to go.”
“We have food. Shelter. Guns. You want to give that up for a maybe?”
Matt hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. I do. Because if someone out there’s fighting back... then that’s where I want to be.”
She didn’t answer immediately; just stared at the radio, jaw clenched, like it was something she both feared and needed. “I’ll think about it.”
Part 8: The Skin Man
The next two days passed in uneasy truce.
They fortified the cabin, rationed food, scratched out possible routes north with trembling fingers and dull pencils. Brielle agreed—grudgingly—that Blue Ridge might be worth the risk. But not yet. Not blind. Not without intel.
The intel came sooner than either of them expected.
Near dusk, Matt caught movement in the treeline. A shadow. A shape. Too smooth to be wind.
Too cautious to be a deader.
He didn’t speak. Just pointed.
Brielle took the rifle, slipped out the back door, and vanished into the trees, low and quiet.
She circled wide, taking ten careful minutes to get close—close enough to see it clearly.
Not a deader. Not exactly.
The figure stood half-shrouded in kudzu, watching the cabin from a slope. It was tall, wrapped in shredded clothing and cables that shimmered faintly in the dying light. Its mask was a grotesque patchwork of human skin—stitched leather pulled tight across bone. Mouths sewn shut along the jawline. Extra eyes embedded like relics, mismatched and misaligned, staring without blinking. A crown of wires protruded from the scalp, tangled into rusted nails. It held a long staff in one hand—wood wrapped in barbed wire, crowned with skull fragments, bone charms clinking softly in the breeze.
It didn’t flinch. Didn’t speak. Just turned slightly as she approached, like it had always known she was there.
“You’re part of what made that thing in the attic?” she asked, voice low and steady.
The mask tilted, slow and deliberate.
Then it smiled.
Not with a mouth—those were sewn tight—but with the suggestion of one. The stitched lips pulled against the seams in a twitching arc. The embedded eyes sparkled, catching the light like marbles slick with blood.
Then it turned and slipped into the forest.
No rustle. No snap. Just gone, like smoke on the wind.
Brielle did not follow.
Her Nanna told her not to chase ghosts, and Brielle had every intention of obeying her. ‘You don’t chase ghosts, Bre-bre, especially ones who want you to see them.’
When she returned, Matt was still sitting at the fire, hunched over the radio, fingers twitching like he’d been shocked.
She sat beside him and told him everything.
By the time she finished, the fire had burned down to ash.
Matt stared into the embers. “So there are people doing this?”
She nodded once. “Or something close to people.”
He swallowed hard, Adam’s apple bobbing like a drowning man. “Then we leave. Tonight. I don’t care if we don’t have a plan. We go.”
This time, she didn’t argue.
Part 9: Exit Wound
They left just before dawn, breath fogging in the cold, packs strapped tight, every zipper muffled with cloth; a silent retreat into the skeletal woods.
Brielle led them down an old hunting trail—a barely-there path choked with dead leaves and thorny undergrowth, snaking through hollows north of the lake. No roads. No clearings. No sky.
Less chance of being seen.
The air felt wrong. Colder than it should’ve been. Heavy, like it was watching.
They moved fast, stepping over frozen creek beds and rotting logs. Matt kept glancing over his shoulder, flinching at every gust of wind through the pines.
By mid-afternoon, they heard it again.
Not the ragged moan of reanimates.
Not animals.
Screams. Human-shaped. But too stretched. Like someone had taught pain how to sing.
They ducked into an old ranger outpost, long since boarded up and rotting from the inside out.
Dust choked the air. Matt stumbled in, slammed the door, and pressed himself into the shadows.
Outside, the forest came alive.
Shapes moved between the trees. Dozens. Maybe more.
Some crawled—limbs scraping the ground like wet ropes. Others staggered upright, torsos twisted, heads backwards or split. All of them were wrong. Mutilated. Wired. Sewn. Rebuilt into something that should not walk.
Some had too many joints. Some none at all. Breathing wet and ragged, mouths moving but making no sound.
Matt covered his mouth, eyes wide, body shaking.
Brielle stared through the cracks in the wood, unmoving.
Then—
The Skin Man emerged.
Barefoot. Calm. He walked through the mass like it was his garden. Staff in hand, bone charms clicking softly, head high.
The mask was unchanged—stitched skin, dead mouths smiling, eyes like polished glass.
He didn’t look around. Didn’t need to.
He knew they were there.
And behind him, dragging chains across the frostbitten ground, came something massive.
Bear-sized. Covered in stitched hides. Its limbs were wrong—too many elbows, too many hands, all reaching.
No face. Just smooth skin stretched across its head like butcher paper.
It breathed like a furnace.
They didn’t speak. Didn’t move.
Not until the last broken limb vanished into the trees and the screams faded behind them.
Only then did Brielle exhale.
They waited until full dark before slipping out the back, feet silent, hearts pounding like war drums in their chests.
Part 10: Contact
It took three more days to reach the dam.
They avoided every town, slept in treetops and buried their trail behind them. The air was colder now, and something about the world itself felt thinner, less alive.
On the morning of the fourth day, they saw the fence.
Barbed wire. Watchtowers. Spotlights.
Someone yelled—human, unmistakable.
“Stop! Don’t move!”
Brielle threw up her hands. Matt followed.
A spotlight blinded them. More shouting. Footsteps. Guns.
Then— a face. Tanned, bearded, wearing a patched-up Georgia Forestry jacket.
“You two from the south?”
Brielle nodded. “Kennesaw.”
The man exhaled like it hurt. “Damn. Come through that mess?”
“Every inch of it.”
The gates opened.
They entered.
Part 11: Fort Blue Ridge
The interior wasn’t a miracle. But it was hope.
They followed a winding gravel road down toward the river, where the dam rose like a jagged scar out of the trees. The structure had been patched and re-purposed—concrete walls reinforced with rusting sheet metal, netting strung along the perimeter like spiderwebs, and sentry platforms welded from truck beds and road signs. The hum of power vibrated faintly through the soles of their boots.
The hydroelectric plant had been converted into a stronghold—functional, ugly, alive. Chain-link walkways spidered across its face, bolted into concrete with industrial bolts. Watch-posts jutted from the upper tiers, manned by figures in mismatched camo and winter gear, rifles resting easy but not idle. Solar panels lined the dam wall in neat, tilted rows, soaking up the fading winter light. There were gardens too—greenhouses made from scavenged windows, plastic sheeting, and old rebar.
Inside the gates, people moved with wary purpose. Dozens of them. Families huddled around cook-fires. Loners slept sitting up, weapons within reach. A kid—maybe ten—hauled a car battery twice his size across a loading dock. Everything smelled like diesel, sweat, and ash.
A woman met them just past the inner checkpoint, flanked by two others in patched flak vests.
Tess.
Ex-National Guard. Her posture still carried the weight of command—shoulders squared, eyes sharp, missing two fingers on her left hand. The stump had been cauterized and wrapped in a custom glove, more functional than cosmetic. She didn’t ask who they were. She just looked them over and said, “Come with me.”
They followed her through a hall thick with wires and welding scars, past a waterwheel that still spun lazily in the depths below. She led them to a rusted office with maps pinned to every surface—hand-drawn routes, scavenging zones, and areas labeled simply “lost.” A portable heater buzzed in the corner.
She sat behind a desk stacked with notebooks and ration logs. A rifle leaned against the wall beside her. She gestured for them to sit.
“You saw hybrids?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Brielle said. “Wired. Altered. Something intelligent behind it.”
Tess didn’t flinch. “We’ve heard rumors. One group claims they saw a ‘Skin Man’ up in Ellijay. Seven feet tall. Wore a cloak of skin. Thing could command the dead. They barely got away.”
Matt swallowed. “So it’s real.”
Tess nodded once. “We don’t know what to call them, not officially. But they’re out there. We’ve seen tracks. Heard things on the shortwave. They’re organizing.”
Matt leaned forward. “But who’s building them? The hybrids. Someone has to be doing it.”
Tess leaned back slowly, expression unreadable. “We think some of them were people. Survivors who went wrong. Started experimenting. Pushing into things they shouldn’t. Looking for control. Or answers. Or salvation.”
Brielle’s brow creased. “Salvation?”
Tess studied her hand. “Some people think if you become the right kind of monster, the other monsters leave you alone. They think there’s a hierarchy now. That the dead respect something. Maybe even obey it.”
Matt exhaled, hollow and cold. “So they’re trying to join it.”
Tess nodded. “Or lead it. It’s always about power.”
Silence hung in the room. The heater hummed. On the map behind Tess, a red X was scrawled over Chattanooga.
“What about resistance?” Brielle asked. “Is there anyone out there fighting back?”
Tess glanced to her second-in-command, then stood. “Some. Not many. Most just try to stay out of the way. But there’s talk of a signal. Something buried in the FEMA bands. A pattern. No one can decrypt it, but it pulses every week. Some think it’s coordinates. A rally point.”
Matt’s eyes flicked to the radio on the desk. “And if it is?”
Tess shrugged. “Then maybe we’re not alone.”
Outside, the wind howled through the dam gates like a warning. Or a call.
And far off in the woods, something answered.
Part 12: The Wager
That night, Matt sat by the edge of the dam, staring out over the black lake.
Brielle joined him. “You still think Jersey’s out there?”
He chuckled. “People are pretty tough in Jersey...But, honestly, I don’t know what’s left out there. I haven’t been able to talk to my parents in a couple of weeks.”
She looked out across the water. “We’re not done running.”
“I know.”
“Blue Ridge is holding—for now. But if they come down from the north, or if the Skin Man and his ilk start pushing...”
Matt looked at her. “You think we’ll have to fight them?”
“You’re a smart guy, you tell me.”
Three nights later, the sky broke open.
A storm rolled down from the mountains—violent, electric, and cold. Lightning shattered the forest in streaks of white. The lake churned.
That’s when the alarms went off.
Figures at the tree line.
Dozens.
And leading them—the Skin Man. He wore a crown of antlers and had bones strung around his chest like armor.
It was the same one who Brielle had seen. The one from the cabin. The One Who Smiled.
The hybrids hit the fence first—exploding against it with suicidal frenzy, tearing through barbed wire with their own bodies.
The floodlights cut out.
Guns cracked.
Screams followed.
Part 13: Burn Line
They fought from the walkways.
Matt with a scoped rifle. And that was when he saw it.
A strip of flesh on one hybrid slipped free, revealing something underneath. Metal. Ports.
A circuit board. His brain clicked through a decade of computer builds and YouTube DIYs.
A single-board computer? Could it really be that simple? GPIO ports, maybe. It didn’t have to be fancy—just functional. Something to run code. Trigger movement. Trigger sound.
Tess shouted orders from a tower on the bridge. Someone launched a Molotov into the surge. Another rigged a generator to blast floodlight into the wave of enemies.
But they kept coming.
At the peak of the storm, the Skin Man stepped into the open. The smile was gone.
His staff struck the ground once. And every deader within fifty feet dropped instantly. Matt’s hands went to his ears as the most annoying pitched sound he ever heard suddenly assaulted him from every direction. Through squinted eyes, he saw the deaders stand again. They looked somehow smarter, as if their eyes actually understood. They sure as fuck were faster.
Coordinated.
Tess screamed: “Burn the bridge!”
Explosives wired to the walkway. Brielle ran for the trigger, blood pouring down her arm from a gash she couldn’t remember getting.
She looked back—saw Matt limping toward her, face twisted in pain. Her hand hovered over the switch. One more second? No. There wasn’t time.
“NOW!” Tess shouted.
She hit the switch.
Fire and thunder.
The walkway exploded, flinging bodies into the river below. The Skin Man vanished in smoke and flame.
And still... the screaming didn’t stop.
Part 14: Ashes
They buried Tess two days later—beneath gravel and river rock near the turbines. No speeches. Just silence.
The dam held. Barely.
Matt sat against a wall, ribs taped tight. Brielle had six fresh stitches and a bruise the size of a fist down her leg. Half the survivors were gone. But they were still breathing.
“The hybrids are scattered,” she said.
“For now,” Matt replied, eyes on the ash-covered skyline. “They’ll come back.”
“Smarter. Stronger.”
“Did you hear that sound?” He asked.
“Jersey, I heard sounds I never want to hear again.”
“No, I mean one pierced through your head like a dentist drill?”
Brielle looked doubtful. They stared at each other for a few moments.
“I think I know what’s makes them work.”
She turned. “Speak.”
He did. Quietly.
When he finished, she said nothing for a long time. Eventually she said; “We’d better figure out how to counter it.”
Matt looked at her—eyes bloodshot, but sharp. “I’ve got a plan. It’s not perfect. But it’s a start.”
She chambered a round, gaze already north.
“Then we’d better start hunting.”
EPILOGUE: Resurrection
Somewhere downriver, the surface broke.
First one antler breached—slick with blood and algae. Then another, snapped halfway up its length.
The water churned. A hand followed. Then a shoulder.
The Skin Man dragged himself onto the muddy bank, slow and deliberate. His mask was half-torn, one stitched mouth split open, leaking dark fluid. The crown of wires sagged, twisted. His control staff was gone—splintered and swept downstream.
He was burned. Bruised. Split in places where no flesh should split.
But he was alive.
And he smiled.
Not with the sewn mouths.
With human muscle.
But beneath the mask, beneath the skins and twisted wire—something old and patient stirred.
And deep beneath the wreckage of what he’d become, something hungry remembered what it used to be.
Chapter 2: Circuit Breaker
Part 1: The Spark
Steven always thought the apocalypse would be cooler.
If it had to happen, he figured there’d be flair. A rogue AI meltdown. A super-volcano. Maybe laser-eyed dolphins rocketing from melting ice caps.
Instead, it began with a cough. Wet and raking, echoing through the HVAC like a dying trombone. Then a scream—sharp, sudden, like a horror movie jump scare.
It was 3:42 p.m. on a Friday.
Steven—six feet of hoodie, sarcasm, and sleep debt—was hunched over a folding table on the 8th floor of Auburn Tower, a 12-story glass-and-concrete box just off Peachtree and 10th. His desk looked like a crash-landed RadioShack: soldered wires, circuit boards, a near-dead Monster Zero, and a battered Roomba chassis. If not for the photo of his wife and daughter clipped to the monitor, you might’ve guessed it belonged to a broke Tony Stark.
At the center sat his pride and joy: a Raspberry Pi 4 with a cooling fan mod, labeled in Sharpie—GLaDOS Jr.
Across from him lounged Nolan, a marketing analyst with high-fashion dreams and no visible responsibilities. He scrolled aimlessly through his phone, Red Bull in hand, his shirt both designer and offensively unbuttoned for a corporate setting.
Steven tapped a few keys. “Behold. The future of surveillance, domestic assistance, and mild emotional trauma.”
The Roomba buzzed to life. It rolled forward, duct-taped shell wobbling slightly, a GoPro mounted like a single, judgmental eye. It scanned the room, beeped twice, then locked onto Nolan.
“Hey, bro,” it said in a flat voice. “Nice shirt. Did you get dressed in the dark?”
Nolan choked. “You programmed sarcasm?”
Steven grinned. “Didn’t need to. I scraped Reddit for sarcasm, filtered it through Stack Overflow, and taught it to roast anyone with a trust fund.”
“You built a trolling vacuum.”
“I call it SnarkBot Prime.”
The lights flickered.
“Power surge?” Nolan asked.
Overhead, the fluorescents dimmed, buzzing like they were giving up. Then:
BEEP-BEEP-BEEEEEP.
The fire alarm screamed. A voice crackled through the PA: “All employees, please walk carefully to the nearest exits…”
The system cut out with a pop. Another scream pierced the floor—raw, terrified.
Then the sound of something heavy slamming into drywall.
Steven’s phone buzzed.
[CDC ALERT: SHELTER-IN-PLACE. Midtown Atlanta outbreak confirmed.]
[LIVE: MARTA service suspended. All trains stopped at Perimeter Checkpoints.]
[BREAKING: Mass casualties reported at Emory Hospital…]
[Group chat: yo anyone else see janice bite phil in the stairwell wtf?]
Steven looked up slowly. “I don’t think this is a drill.”
4:05 p.m.
They barricaded the stairwell with office chairs, snapped brooms into spears, and ducked into Conference Room 8C—better known for lukewarm coffee and quarterly awkwardness than tactical defense.
Rina from Accounts Payable brought her paper slicer. Tyler the intern looked like he’d seen a god he didn’t believe in. Mel from DevOps gripped a monitor arm like a mace.
HR guy came too.
“Technically,” he panted, brushing dust off his Banana Republic suit, “OSHA fire protocols supersede shelter-in-place orders if there’s visible fire or structural compromise.”
Steven didn’t look up. “Great. You can file the paperwork if we survive.”
“My name is—”
“You’re the HR guy, we know.” Rina said.
“RTO has been a blast, thanks for that,” Nolan said.
“That wasn’t my idea—” HR guy replied.
Steven rolled SnarkBot Prime into the room. The bot bumped into a chair, paused, and said: “Obstacle detected. Also, I don’t like you.”
HR frowned. “Can I file a harassment claim against that?”
“Only if you survive him,” Nolan muttered.
“We should leave,” HR insisted, pacing. “Use the stairwell—get down and out.”
“You want to take the stairs with those things?” Rina asked.
“Deaders,” Nolan added. “That’s what they’re calling them online.”
“They have a name already?” Steven asked.
“The Internet does not disappoint.”
“They’re not dead,” Mel said. “It’s some kind of neural parasite, communicable through saliva and bodily fluids—Dutch virology lab released a white paper last month. The US ignored it. Early cases had EEG patterns still firing—”
Steven cut her off. “Janet from IT tried to eat Phil’s spine ten minutes ago. Let’s skip the peer review.”
He opened his laptop, plugged in the Pi, and started modifying SnarkBot’s detection routines.
“I can reprogram him to sweep the hall,” he said. “IR detection, proximity, motion. If something warm and lurchy shows up, we get a heads-up.”
Tyler, still pale, asked, “You always tinker while people are dying?”
Steven soldered a connection. “You cope your way. I’ll cope mine.”
His hands didn’t shake, but his eyes flicked—just once—toward the clipped photo on the monitor.
4:23 p.m.
The hallway was as quiet as a quarterly reports meeting on a Friday afternoon.
Steven finished the code, then duct-taped a Bluetooth speaker to SnarkBot’s chassis. With ceremonial flourish, he hit play.
“Yakety Sax” blared as the bot rolled out with cheerful whirs, trailing its cable like a techno-rat.
Three minutes passed.
Then came the moan. Low. Wet. Wrong.
Steven squinted at the GoPro feed.
Janet from IT—or what was left—staggered into frame. Her chin hung askew. Blood ran in ropes down her neck. One eye bulged like a cracked trackball. Her Emory badge swung as she snapped at the air, lips shredded.
Behind her: a man in a delivery vest, shirt soaked in arterial spray. Then another. And another.
SnarkBot locked on and said, “Obstacle detected. Holy crap, you’re ugly.”
Then: static.
Steven exhaled. “There goes $200 of electronics… and a piece of my soul.”
Mel backed from the door. “They’re on eight?”
“Must’ve come up the freight elevator,” Steven muttered. “It’s still wired to the loading docks.”
Nolan swore. “You think the exec floor’s still sealed?”
“In the event of a catastrophic emergency,” HR guy began, “the executive floor goes into secure mode with company security authorized to use deadly force to prevent a breach. It was in your onboarding paperwork.
“That’s psychotic.”
“That’s capitalism,” Rina said.
HR opened his mouth.
“Don’t,” said three voices at once.
5:11 p.m.
They moved fast.
The cubicles were chaos—ringing phones, abandoned snacks, blood sprayed across a Hang In There cat poster.
Near the break room, SnarkBot lay in pieces. The GoPro lens was cracked. One wheel spun in place like it hadn’t gotten the memo.
Janet was nearby, face-down. Her skull looked like it had been introduced to an office chair at speed.
Steven knelt, gently pried the Pi core loose, and tucked it into his hoodie.
“You didn’t die for nothing,” he murmured. “I’ll rebuild you. Stronger. Dumber. With a taser.”
The elevator panel blinked red.
Steven popped it open to reveal a nest of wires.
“Legacy buildings usually keep a bypass—EMT override. If I spoof badge access through serial injection…”
HR peeked over. “Is that… a felony?”
Steven didn’t look up. “Everything’s legal if the cops aren’t around. Learned that from a cartoon with my kid.”
Rina blinked. “Oh god, Steven. Your daughter—have you heard from them?”
He hesitated. Just for a breath. “Not yet.”
Then: back to wires.
“You’re seriously doing this?” HR asked.
“All it takes,” Steven said, “is 1,200 lines of Python, ten years of social anxiety, and a vape pen battery.”
Beep.
The elevator dinged.
Steven grinned. “I am an art-teest.”
The vape pen battery overloaded faster than he thought. Sure, the elevator jammed—but so did his hand, burned red from the arc. And now the whole tower reeked of fried plastic. So much for subtle.
Part 2: The Fall
The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime.
Not a triumphant ding. Not a dramatic clunk.
Just… a polite tone in C5.
Steven squinted into the fluorescent glow.
Two men in tactical gear raised their rifles instantly.
“HOLD IT!”
Nolan dropped his wrench like it was radioactive and flung his hands up. “Not infected! We’re very alive! I almost fainted during squats this morning, if that helps!”
“We just want safety,” Rina said, stepping forward slowly. “There are dozens of infected up there. We barely got out.”
“No unauthorized personnel beyond this point,” one of the guards barked. His voice was firm but tight—nerves behind armor. “Executive floor is sealed under emergency protocol. This space is for C-level clearance only.”
Tyler moved forward, voice hoarse. “There were kids down there. A pregnant woman too. You gonna leave them?”
“This is just procedure.”
“Who can override this ‘procedure’?” Steven asked.
“CEO Blake,” the other guard said. “But that’s not likely to happen.”
“There has to be a way to—”
“No exceptions. Not even interns.”
“Not even—” Tyler blinked. “Are you serious?”
Nolan took a step forward. “How much caviar and powdered shrimp cocktail is this guy hoarding in there?”
“Enough for the board and their dependents,” the guard replied flatly. “We’re under a strict triage plan.”
Steven took a slow look around the pristine executive lobby. No blood. No damage. No noise except the hum of luxury HVAC. The scent of lemongrass diffusers floated like smugness in mist form. There were real ferns. A glass bowl of mints sat on a side table, untouched. A soft jazz melody trickled from unseen speakers.
He leaned toward Rina. “It smells like betrayal and eucalyptus.”
Then, louder: “Let me go in. I’ll talk to Blake. One person. Or you can pick.”
The guards exchanged a look; one spoke into his headset. Nodded.
“Fine,” one said. “You. Hoodie boy.”
5:38 p.m. — Executive Suite
The suite looked like a Bond villain’s vision board.
Floor-to-ceiling glass reflected firelight from the chaos below, casting ghost-shadows across high-end furniture. A drink cart stood beside a leather couch, untouched. The screen behind the desk flickered with muted security feeds—twelve silent windows of death on a loop.
CEO Martin Blake sat behind a slab of a desk, scrolling a tablet the size of a cutting board, glossy and cold like everything else in the room. A shot glass probably worth more than Steven’s Pi sat empty near his hand.
He didn’t look up. “So. You’re the dev with the sarcastic floor mop.”
“SnarkBot,” Steven said, stepping closer, his finger nervously tapped at the USB drive in his pocket. “He died saving people. Unlike your leadership.”
Blake sipped from a crystal tumbler. “I know your work. You’re brilliant. Even if you are chronically under-motivated.”
Steven started to reply, but Blake waved him off.
“But this stunt? If it weren’t made of desperation; it would have been brilliant. But, I suppose that’s why most people with your skills stay behind a screen.”
Steven didn’t sit. “There are survivors on eight. You could fit twenty people up here easy. There’s food. Power. Water. They need help.”
Blake finally looked at him. Eyes like marble. “Yes, there is food. But not for the staff. Steven, this floor is a lifeboat. Lifeboats capsize when you let everyone climb aboard.”
“Floors don’t capsize,” Steven said coldly. “This is a penthouse filled with cowards.”
Blake rose, adjusting his cuffs. “That’s too on the nose for a smart guy like you. Call it what you want. But I’m still here. That’s the difference. You want me to risk one life for twenty. I say: I don’t know those twenty. I don’t need to.”
Steven’s fists clenched. His throat was dry. “You’re going to let them die.”
“I’m going to survive, the smartest always survive. And I am the smartest.”
Steven’s jaw tightened.
“And the guy in charge. ” Blake said, without heat, “you’d do the same.”
Steven stared. For a breath too long.
And in that breath, something settled.
Not rage. Not even grief.
Clarity.
The kind that came with consequences.
“I see,” Steven said quietly. “Then you’ve made your choice.”
He turned to leave. But as the doors slid shut behind him, he didn’t feel righteous. He didn’t feel vindicated.
He felt something colder coil in his chest. Something sharp and silent.
Whatever came next… he would live with it.
Or it would come back to find him.
5:52 p.m. — Back in the Elevator
Steven rejoined the others, his jaw set.
“I assume Blake told you to eat a spreadsheet?” Nolan asked.
Steven pulled a USB drive from his hoodie pocket. “No. He told me how their system works.”
“You stole files?” Rina said.
“Copied. I’m not a savage.”
He dropped to one knee and pried open the elevator panel again, rewiring faster this time.
“What’s the plan?” HR Guy asked, holding a legal pad like a dagger.
“I’m going to turn Blake’s smug apocalypse bunker into a feature-length horror show. Building-wide broadcast:
6:04 p.m. — 8th Floor Server Room
The server room buzzed like an angry beehive. Outside, the groans were louder. Something heavy banged against the stairwell door again and again, like a battering ram made of meat.
Tyler had jammed a steel monitor stand through the handles. It wouldn’t hold forever.
Steven sat at the terminal. “I’m overriding the building’s AV system. We’re going to show the whole place what Blake’s doing upstairs.”
Rina paced nearby. “Why?”
“Because maybe someone else is alive. Legal. Security. Hell, one of the janitors. All we need is one pissed-off person with a weapon and a moral compass.”
He uploaded footage:
– Blake sipping bourbon while chaos bloomed below.
– His orders to turn away survivors.
– A clip of him saying: “There is food. Just not for the staff.”
Then Steven added the last shot:
SnarkBot’s final moments.
Janet—her face slack, eye bulging, jaw unhinged—turning to the GoPro before lunging with an inhuman howl.
“Obstacle detected. Holy crap, you’re ugly.”
Static.
Steven pressed UPLOAD.
6:13 p.m. — Entire Building Broadcast
Screens lit up across Auburn Tower.
In break rooms, security desks, and elevators, the footage looped:
“You survive by choosing the right people.”
“There is food. Just not for you.”
“SnarkBot Prime reporting: my chassis is being eaten by Janet. No notes.”
Somewhere on three, a custodian snapped a mop in half and headed for the stairs.
6:21 p.m. — 4th Floor Lobby
They returned to the executive floor.
This time, the guards were waiting for Steven.
“Open up,” one growled, pounding on the glass. “We saw the feed.”
Blake’s voice crackled over the intercom. “You’re making a mistake—”
“We’re not dying for you.”
“Gentlemen, please. Consider your actions… and future employment.”
“There isn’t much of a future out here,” Steven said.
Blake’s voice sharpened. “Double pay to whoever puts down the guy in the hoodie.”
The guards froze. One looked at Steven—then at the others. The silence stretched.
Steven’s breath caught. He hadn’t planned for this.
He looked at Rina. Nolan. Mel. HR Guy.
It had been a brilliant offensive. But he’d missed a variable.
Greed.
Then: “Why would we kill the guy who didn’t lie to us? Last warning, Blake.”
The doors opened.
Steven stepped through.
Blake turned and ran. He made it three steps before tripping over a standing desk mat and slamming into a potted ficus.
Steven tackled him hard. They hit the ground in a tangle of limbs and breathless rage.
“I could let them tear you apart,” he hissed.
Blake wheezed, struggling. “You think you’re the hero?”
Steven leaned in. His voice was low and cold.
“No. I’m the patch. You’re the bug. How’s that for on the nose?”
6:40 p.m. — Aftermath
Blake was zip-tied to an ergonomic office chair, still conscious but slumped in silence.
Steven walked the others through their new stronghold like a janky Airbnb host. “Solar backup’s good for three days. Food’s weird, but edible. Don’t touch the kale water.”
“Can we trust the power grid?” Rina asked, eyeing a flickering wall panel.
“No,” Steven said. “But we can steal from it.”
Tyler chuckled. “You’re really going full techno-bandit now.”
Steven opened a panel behind the desk and pulled out a satellite phone. He tossed it to Nolan.
“Call FEMA. Tell them the executive floor needs an extraction.”
Nolan caught it, wide-eyed. “How many should I tell them?”
Steven turned to HR Guy. “Ballpark it. How many people are still alive in the building?”
Part 3: The Siege
Day Two – 6:02 a.m.
The city outside looked hollowed out—like something vital had been scooped from its core and left to rot under the rising sun.
Smoke still curled from Midtown like ghost fingers. Distant sirens echoed, slower now, more desperate. The MARTA lines were dead. Bodies and stalled trains crowded the tracks like broken bones stacked end to end.
Most of the guards had left during the night, choosing to get home to their families. Steven hadn’t stopped them. Couldn’t. But he still watched the exit elevator with a tight jaw, wishing—just once—that people didn’t always take the guns with them.
Inside, the fourth floor had become a kind of fortress.
Tyler—finally talking again—was duct-taping a chef’s knife to a broom handle with the shaky focus of a surgeon and the twitch of a trauma survivor.
Mel was stacking empty champagne crates and calling it “infrastructure.”
Rina had claimed the break room for triage, using gauze from a marketing swag first-aid kit and vodka labeled premium by a bold, shameless liar.
Nolan crouched next to the Keurig, wires splayed like spilled intestines. His hands worked while his mouth ran.
“I’m not saying this is working,” he muttered, “but I think I just invented broth espresso.”
A low, meaty thud echoed from the far end of the hall. None of them flinched. The emergency doors held. For now.
Steven had converted the yoga studio into a lab.
The mats were gone, replaced with a chaotic altar of salvaged tech: air purifiers, scent diffusers, a mangled piece of SnarkBot Prime, and a $3,200 chrome-plated bidet that had once been the pride of Martin Blake’s porcelain empire.
“This,” Steven whispered, tightening a bolt with the last clean wrench in the building, “is either the greatest act of post-apocalyptic engineering… or the world’s most aggressive hygiene mistake.”
Tyler peeked through the doorframe, raising an eyebrow. “You okay, boss?”
Steven didn’t look up. “I’m excellent. This is my war room.”
“What is it?”
“High-velocity deader repellent. Bluetooth bidet pump. Heating coil. Cinnamon oil. Concentrated soap.”
He patted the gleaming chrome housing.
“I call it… Flush Protocol.”
Tyler was quiet for a beat. Then: “You know, I worry about you sometimes, boss.”
“Same, Tyler. Same.”
7:28 a.m. — Perimeter Breach
The stairwell doors on the west side buckled with a deep, metallic groan.
Steven froze. He could feel them coming in the vibrations—feet dragging, bodies pressing. At least thirty. Maybe more. The air thickened with the sound of breathless, wet groaning.
Rina sprinted in from the north hallway.
“They’re climbing! They just hit the second-floor balcony!”
Steven wiped his hands on a towel and stepped into the hall. He checked his laptop, patched into the building’s motion sensors.
“Okay. Motion sensors are hot. Tripwires are ready. And the shock panels are tied to the data server’s backup batteries.”
Rina raised an eyebrow. “You hooked up booby traps to our $40,000 RAID array?”
“Yes. If we die, it won’t be from lack of imagination.”
HR Guy—now wearing a necktie as a bandana—peered around the corner.
“Are we absolutely sure this doesn’t violate code?”
“Yes,” Rina said. “Because the building doesn’t exist anymore on any paperwork that matters.”
“The law is forever,” HR Guy said.
“Tell that to Janet.”
7:43 a.m. — They Come
They arrived like a wave of meat.
Glass shattered. The stairwell door gave out with a splintering shriek. The first one wore a delivery uniform, his jaw swinging like a loose hinge. Behind him came more: teeth bared, faces rotted, eyes milk-white with hunger.
Steven ducked behind a flipped conference table and whispered into his mic.
“Flush Protocol. Engage.”
A spark.
Then a loud crack.
Blue light arced from the server room like lightning. The first wave of deaders spasmed and collapsed, twitching as the current fried what was left of their nervous systems.
Smoke filled the air.
And then, from the south hallway—
Flush Protocol activated.
The bidet cannon hissed. The LED turned red. And then it sprayed a boiling, high-pressure jet of soap, water, and cinnamon oil at 80 PSI straight into the corridor.
Three deaders were blown off their feet, slamming into the others like bowling pins soaked in barbecue sauce. The air filled with the aggressive scent of Fresh Linen Hellstorm.
Nolan peeked over the barricade and burst out laughing.
“You power washed them!”
Steven gave a mock salute. “All hail the porcelain rebellion.”
8:12 a.m. — Reinforcement
The tide slowed but didn’t stop.
Tyler and Mel returned from a supply run, limping, scraped, but alive. They’d used cubicle partitions, a vending machine, and a filing cabinet full of abandoned stock grants to seal off the eastern stairwell.
“We’re good for now,” Mel said, panting.
“How many are still out there?” Steven asked.
Mel wiped a streak of blood from her neck. “Too many. They’re clustering now. Like they’re drawn to something. Noise, heat, whatever.”
HR Guy opened a packet of hummus and said, “I still think—”
“No one cares, Chad,” said four people at once.
Blake, still zip-tied in the corner, stirred.
“You think this ends with a helicopter ride?” he rasped.
Steven didn’t look at him. “No. It ends with the right people getting out. But not you.”
“Destroy the competition. I like the way you think, Dev guy.” Blake said.
9:30 a.m. — The Call
From the CEO’s office, Nolan shouted, “Steven! Incoming!”
Steven sprinted in, laptop in hand, nearly knocking over a gilded bust of Ayn Rand.
The satellite phone crackled to life.
“FEMA Unit 4-B, Augusta detachment. Who is this?”
Steven grabbed the mic.
“Auburn Tower, fourth floor. Survivors confirmed. Eight here, maybe more scattered across the building. Partial lockdown in place.”
“Copy. We’ve got a visual from drone scans. Extraction window: 36 hours. Hold position. Reinforcements unavailable until then.”
The line cut.
Steven exhaled through his teeth. Thirty-six hours might as well have been thirty-six years.
Rina leaned in. “Can we hold that long?”
Steven glanced at his battery levels, the traps, and the soap-slick hallway.
He cracked his neck.
“Sure,” he said.
He didn’t believe it either.
10:10 a.m. — Preparation
They set to work.
Nolan and Tyler built barricades from desk partitions, potted plants, and half a ping-pong table.
Mel reinforced the eastern hallway using printer guts and optimism.
Rina converted the break room into a med bay.
“Best I can offer is gauze, antihistamines, and an expired protein shake from HR’s emergency stash.”
HR Guy held up the bottle. “It’s only partially expired—”
“Stop talking, Chad,” Nolan said.
Steven rebuilt the bot.
He rigged a salvaged GoPro case, a fresh Pi board, and a mini flamethrower from hairspray and a kitchen lighter.
He mounted it on a wheeled base and gave it voice—one of the old SnarkBot voice modules, patched and stripped of its jokes.
“I call him: Angry Toaster.”
Mel watched the thing roll past, muttering “meatbag detected” in a flat monotone.
“You’re kind of terrifying, Steven.”
“Only when cornered,” he said, without looking up.
Part 4: The Reckoning
DAY THREE – 4:53 a.m.
Thirty-three hours since FEMA contact.
The building groaned like it was trying to breathe.
The fourth floor was holding—barely. The reinforced barricades had started to bow inward, like a ribcage under pressure. The scent of decay was thick now, crawling up from the lower levels in waves of rot and mildew.
Steven sat in the server room, knees pulled to his chest, staring at his creation.
Angry Toaster rested in the corner, powered by a car battery and pure spite. Its flamethrower unit clicked in test mode. He’d reprogrammed it to recognize any moving heat signature below 97°F and deliver a two-second burst of glorious, cleansing fire.
Nolan limped in, a makeshift sling wrapped around his shoulder. “They’ve started scratching through drywall. Like raccoons. Feral, angry raccoons that used to be baristas.”
Steven stood. “How’s Tyler?”
“He’s still out. Rina’s watching him. Running on adrenaline and peanut butter crackers.”
Steven looked down at the salvaged Pi core from SnarkBot Prime. Burnt edges. Cracked chip. Still breathing.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Nolan asked.
Steven nodded. “We send a message. One more trap. One last stand.”
5:28 a.m. – The Plan
The group huddled in the Quiet Zen Reflection Room, which now smelled like bleach, sweat, and capitalism’s rot.
Steven pulled out the whiteboard and started drawing.
His handwriting was shaky, but the diagrams were clear: hallway routes, fallback points, detonation lines. He underlined one section in red.
THIS IS NOT IDEAL BUT STILL LEGAL PROBABLY
“We draw them to the south corridor. Motion and light bait. Angry Toaster leads the herd. Once they’re in range, we blow the ethanol charges and melt the sprinkler line to spike the pressure. If we’re lucky, they roast. If not, we slam the last barricade shut and pray FEMA’s early.”
“You planted ethanol traps?” Rina asked.
“I’ve been busy.”
HR Guy raised his hand. “Should we consider if this constitutes a war crime?”
Mel shot him a look. “Chad, your greatest contribution was tripping over a fax machine and yelling ‘I plead the Fifth.’ Shut up.”
Steven turned to Nolan. “I guide the bot manually. Needs a human override. If it targets wrong, it could hit one of us.”
“No,” Rina said immediately.
“You’re not sacrificing yourself,” Nolan added. “That’s not the arc we’re doing.”
“I built this,” Steven said softly. “Every part. I lit the fuse. I hold the match.”
A long silence.
Then Mel said, “Fine. But if you die, I’m building Angrier Toaster out of your ashes.”
5:42 a.m. – The Gauntlet
The corridor echoed with SnarkBot’s recycled voice:
“Hey bro. You’re leaking from your face. Please seek medical attention.”
The Bluetooth speaker clipped to Angry Toaster repeated the comment as the bot rolled forward.
Deaders emerged.
Two. Then five. Then dozens. The sound of wet footsteps filled the hall like rising floodwater. Some were missing arms. Some had mouths stretched into permanent screams. One wore its own intestines like a scarf.
Angry Toaster beeped and hissed.
“Meatbag detected.”
FWOOSH.
The flamethrower burst to life.
The sprinkler pipe exploded in a hiss of steam. The hallway filled with hot mist and the reek of scorched flesh and citrus. Steven triggered the ethanol charge.
BOOM.
Fire engulfed the corridor. Ceiling tiles disintegrated. Glass shattered inward, raining shrapnel like glitter at a riot. The deaders screamed—high, metallic, almost mechanical—as flames devoured them.
Steven ducked behind cover, heat pulsing like a blast furnace. The corridor lit up like Dante’s worst TED Talk.
6:03 a.m. – Extraction
The sound of VTOL engines came like salvation wrapped in thunder.
Ropes dropped through the broken atrium. Six soldiers in FEMA black rappelled down—masks, rifles, thermal scans.
“Four survivors!” one shouted. “Repeat: four survivors, no infection. Floor partially secure.”
Rina helped Tyler to the rope. Mel followed.
Nolan turned to Steven. “You coming?”
Steven stood at the edge of the rooftop, soot-streaked hoodie flapping in the wind. His face was bloodied. Hands shaking. Still holding the Pi core.
Behind them, a figure stumbled from the shadows.
Blake.
Still zip-tied. Still alive. Pale. Quiet now.
Steven stared.
Blake rasped, “You’d be wise to leave me behind.”
Steven shoved him forward. “Maybe. But you’re going to live long enough to regret your choices.”
Blake climbed.
Steven followed.
6:17 a.m. – In the Sky
The VTOL rose over Atlanta.
Below, the Auburn Tower smoked like a dying cigarette. The corridor where it all happened—SnarkBot, Flush Protocol, Angry Toaster—burned away to ash. The sunrise caught the swirling debris, ash floating like confetti after a funeral.
Nolan collapsed beside Steven, panting. “So… breakfast?”
Steven didn’t answer. He just stared out the window, fingers wrapped tight around the Pi core.
From his lap, Tyler pulled something from his bag—a scorched, cracked GoPro lens.
“Saved this for you.”
Steven took it, quiet.
Rina leaned in. “SnarkBot 2.0?”
Steven nodded.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “And this time… less flammable.”
EPILOGUE — THREE WEEKS LATER
Camp 4B, Augusta, Georgia
Latitude: 33.5° N | Hope: In Flux
The sun came up slow over Camp 4B, like it wasn’t sure anyone wanted it anymore.
Steven sat in a folding chair outside the comms tent, hunched over a plastic table with a soldering iron in one hand and a half-melted GoPro in the other. The Raspberry Pi beside him was pristine—fresh from the box, its pins still golden, untouched.
He’d named it GLaDOS Jr.², in Sharpie. Again.
The air smelled like engine oil, instant coffee, and sterilized bandages. It was warm in a way Atlanta hadn’t been—less rot, more recovery.
Across the table, Nolan dropped a protein bar like it was an aged cabernet.
“Classic. Vanilla oat cluster. Texturally indistinguishable from drywall.”
Steven squinted. “Perfect. I’ll feed it to the next raccoon that looks at me funny.”
“Any progress?” Nolan nodded at the wires.
“He’s coming together. Still needs a base and a new voice module. I might just use yours.”
Nolan shrugged. “Make me British. Adds gravitas.”
Rina strolled over, holding a steaming cup of government-issue coffee and a flask she was absolutely not supposed to have.
“Still resurrecting your little war criminal?”
Steven looked up. “He’ll insult fewer people this time. Probably. Maybe.”
She leaned in. “Flamethrower?”
“Better. Multi-angle burst nozzles. Bluetooth subwoofer. He’s basically a party cannon with trauma.”
Nolan raised his drink. “To sass-powered apocalypse defense.”
They laughed. This time, it wasn’t manic or desperate. It was real. They’d earned it.
The camp wasn’t paradise. The tents leaked when it rained. Meals came in ration packs with names like Protein Option D. The med bay ran on hope, duct tape, and whatever Rina could smuggle.
But they were breathing. They were rebuilding.
And they were still together.
That mattered more than Steven expected.
Then the tent flap opened.
Two military police stepped into the clearing like a thundercloud with holsters. Faces blank. Movements tight.
One flipped through a tablet. The other scanned the area like Steven might bolt.
“Steven Geller?”
Steven didn’t look up. “Sorry, already bought my tickets to the Policeman’s Ball.”
The lead MP didn’t smile. “Stand up. Hands behind your back.”
Steven blinked. “Wait. This isn’t a bit?”
Nolan shot up. “What the hell is this?”
Rina moved between them. “If this is about Atlanta, we already gave full statements—”
“You’re under arrest, Mr. Geller,” the MP said as his partner locked the cuffs.
“Charges include aggravated assault, unlawful detainment, and criminal trespass under Georgia law.”
Steven raised an eyebrow. “Blake.”
“Martin Blake filed charges through FEMA’s executive protection system,” the MP confirmed.
Nolan snapped, “He left people to die. Steven saved lives.”
“That’s for a judge,” the MP said. “We’re just the ride.”
Steven sighed as the cuffs tightened. “Careful. That arm built a bidet cannon. You’re manhandling history.”
“We’ll figure this out,” Rina said. “We’ll counter-file. We’ve got logs, video—”
“We have witnesses,” Nolan added. “And a robot that’s legally dead but emotionally present.”
The MP nodded. “Present it in court. For now, he’s coming with us.”
Steven stood, glanced once at the half-built bot, then looked at his friends.
“If I don’t come back,” he said, “finish the bot. Add a cupcake dispenser.”
“You’ll be back,” Rina said.
“Yeah,” Nolan added. “And when you are, we’ll celebrate with canned beans and a trial livestream.”
They led him away.
He didn’t resist.
Just looked back once—at the sun above the tents, the scars on Nolan’s face, the fire in Rina’s eyes, and the unfinished machine waiting on the table.
And he smiled.
Because the apocalypse hadn’t broken him.
It made him clear.
And Blake?
Blake was about to learn what Georgia vs. Geller really meant.
Inside the comms tent, as the sun rose higher and dust floated through the air, a single red LED on the half-built bot flicked on.
Then off.
Then on again.
Just once.
For now.
###
The dead are changing. Because everything evolves.
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You had me at "wet, decisive crunch"!