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Chapter 28: Ashes and Echoes
The aftermath of the explosion left nothing but fire and ruin in its wake. The train yard was a graveyard of smoldering wreckage, twisted metal, and scorched earth. The infected—whatever they had become—were incinerated in the inferno. The black sludge that had spread across Palatka had bubbled and burned, retreating into itself like something wounded.
But Wallace didn’t trust it was over. He couldn't.
He staggered to his feet, coughing against the thick smoke, gripping Vanessa’s arm to help her up. Rhodes and the other survivors were climbing out of the debris, bruised, bleeding, but alive.
For now.
"Did we do it?" Vanessa rasped, her voice raw from the smoke.
Wallace turned in a slow circle, scanning the wreckage. The military’s black trucks were overturned and burning, their occupants silent. The infected were nowhere to be seen—no movement, no eerie laughter, no whispers slithering in the darkness.
But something still felt wrong.
"We need to get out of here," Wallace said. "Before—"
A noise cut through the silence.
A distant, gurgling hiss.
Wallace turned sharply, heart hammering. From beneath the wreckage of the train, something shifted. The ground trembled. Metal screeched.
Then, a hand burst from the debris.
No. Not a hand.
Something else.
It was Mercer. Or what was left of her.
Her charred body writhed as she dragged herself out of the wreckage, her flesh fusing and reforming like molten wax. Her eyes—empty, black voids—locked onto Wallace.
"You really thought that would stop us?" she rasped.
Rhodes raised his rifle, firing a shot. The bullet tore through her skull.
She didn’t flinch.
Didn’t bleed.
She laughed.
And all around them, the dead began to rise.
The fire hadn't killed them. It had changed them.
The blackened, skeletal husks of the infected twitched and lurched to their feet. The flames hadn’t consumed them—it had remade them.
They were something new.
Something worse.
Wallace clenched his jaw. "Run."
No one hesitated.
The survivors turned and sprinted, dodging burning debris, leaping over crumbled rail tracks. Behind them, the things gave chase—faster, stronger, their movements more fluid, more inhuman.
Rhodes grabbed his radio. "To anyone listening—this is Captain Rhodes! Palatka is lost! Repeat—Palatka is lost!"
Static answered.
Then, a voice.
"...We know."
Wallace’s blood ran cold.
The government had been listening.
And they were waiting.
Waiting for something worse.
Then, the air filled with a deep, thunderous rumble.
And the sky began to fall.
Chapter 29: Fire from Above
It started with a distant whine, growing louder by the second.
The air itself seemed to tremble.
Wallace turned his gaze upward.
Streaks of fire cut through the smoke-choked sky—missiles, launched from unseen aircraft high above. A final, desperate attempt to erase what had been born in Palatka.
But it was too late.
The infected welcomed it.
Mercer—her body still shifting, still becoming—lifted her arms, tilting her head back with something that almost looked like joy.
"This is not an ending," she whispered.
Then the first missile hit.
The force of the explosion tore through the town, ripping apart what little remained of its streets, its buildings—its history. The survivors barely had time to throw themselves into the nearest shelter—a crumbling, abandoned bank—as the world outside erupted in fire and force.
The ground shook. The walls buckled.
Dust rained down as Wallace covered Vanessa’s body with his own, shielding her from the impact.
The shockwave rolled through Palatka, consuming everything.
Everything but them.
Minutes passed. Maybe hours.
When Wallace opened his eyes, all he saw was firelight flickering against cracked walls.
The missiles had fallen.
But the laughter hadn’t stopped.
A voice rasped through the settling dust.
"You still don’t understand."
Wallace pushed himself up, blood trickling from a gash on his temple. Vanessa groaned beside him, bruised but breathing. Rhodes was slumped against the wall, coughing out dust.
The voice—Mercer’s voice, but not Mercer—came from everywhere.
"This isn’t the end," it whispered. "You burned Palatka. But you only fed us."
Wallace’s chest tightened.
He staggered toward the shattered entrance of the bank, looking out into the ruins.
And what he saw froze him.
Palatka was gone.
But the black tide had spread.
The river—once contaminated—was now alive.
It slithered across the landscape, moving with intelligence, purpose.
And in the distance, beyond the flames, beyond the wreckage...
Figures stood.
Hundreds of them.
Waiting.
Watching.
Smiling.
The infection hadn’t been contained.
It had escaped.
Vanessa’s voice was barely a whisper.
"...We didn’t stop anything."
Rhodes pressed his radio to his lips, his hand shaking. "HQ… if you can hear me…"
The radio crackled.
Then a single, chilling response.
"...You were never meant to."
The line went dead.
The black tide surged forward.
And Wallace knew—
This was just the beginning.