Chapter 7 — The First Bite

The front windows exploded inward. Glass sprayed across the convenience store in glittering shards while people screamed and stumbled backward into shelves and displays. Something hit the floor hard.

Growling.

Wet.

Animal.

Evelyn’s body locked up for half a second.

Rainwater.

Teeth.

Rotting hands are dragging her down. The alley slammed violently through her mind. Not again.

A hand grabbed her shoulder hard enough to jerk her backward.

“Evelyn.”

Her name.

Sharp.

Grounding.

Reality crashed back into place.

The infected security guard dragged itself across broken glass toward the nearest customer, twitching violently. Blood soaked the front of its uniform while one arm bent wrong beneath its body.

A woman screamed near the coffee station.

The infected lunged toward the sound, instantly.

Fast. Too fast.

People scattered in blind panic.

Someone knocked over an entire display rack trying to reach the back hallway, while the teenage cashier froze behind the register, staring at the blood-covered man crawling across the tile.

“No, no, no—”

The infected slammed into a customer near the coolers hard enough to send them both crashing sideways.

Then it bit him. The scream that tore out of the man’s throat silenced the entire store for one awful heartbeat.

Blood splattered across the refrigerator doors.

People lost their minds.

Customers surged toward the back exit all at once, shoving and shouting while shelves crashed sideways beneath the chaos.

“MOVE!”

“GET OFF ME!”

“Oh my God—” The bitten man shrieked and tried to punch the infected away while teeth tore into his neck.

Evelyn’s stomach twisted violently. For one horrible second, she couldn’t move. Not because she was weak. Because she remembered exactly how flesh sounded when teeth tore through it.

The infected lifted its head suddenly from the man’s throat. Blood covered its mouth. Its pale eyes jerked wildly around the room before locking onto movement again.

Hunting.

People still looked confused.

“They’re infected,” Evelyn said sharply.

Her own voice startled her.

Everyone looked toward her instantly.

Good. Focus them.

“Head trauma stops them,” she continued. “If they bite you, you turn.”

Silence crashed through the station.

Someone whispered: “What?”

The infected lunged again. This time toward the screaming cashier.

Rowan moved first.

Fast.

Efficient. 

Violent.

He grabbed the heavy metal coffee dispenser beside the counter and slammed it down onto the infected’s skull hard enough to crack bone. The impact echoed through the station. The infected collapsed sideways against the tile.

People stared.

Then the thing started twitching again.

The cashier screamed. “It’s still moving!”

Of course it was.

Evelyn’s pulse hammered painfully against her throat.

Move. She grabbed the fallen caution sign beside the bathrooms and ripped the metal pole free with shaking hands.

The infected snarled and started pushing itself upright again. Evelyn froze for one awful heartbeat.

The angle.

The movement.

The blood around its mouth.

Too much like the alley.

Her hands shook violently.

Then the infected lunged.

Instinct crushed hesitation flat.

Evelyn drove the sharpened metal end through its eye. The body convulsed violently. Hot blood splashed across her hands.

Then it went still. Actually still.

The entire gas station fell silent except for ragged breathing and rain hammering the roof.

She immediately staggered backward. Her hands shook violently around the metal pole. Blood dripped slowly down her wrists while her stomach twisted so hard it hurt.

The smell hit her next.

Blood.

Coffee.

Rainwater.

Rot.

Too familiar.

A sharp electronic tone rang through her skull.

FIRST KILL BONUS ACHIEVED.

+10 SURVIVAL POINTS.

CURRENT SURVIVAL RATE: 8.4%

Blue text flickered across her vision.

Evelyn barely registered it. Because outside the shattered station windows...Movement. More figures staggered through the rain toward the building. Wrong movements. Jerking. Uneven. Fast when they noticed motion.

A woman near the gas pumps slowly lifted herself from the pavement. Blood covered her throat.

The bitten customer on the floor saw her and started crying. “Oh my God…”

Someone near the coolers whispered: “She was dead…”

The woman outside slammed into the cracked window.

People screamed again.

Another figure emerged from the darkness near the pumps. Then another. Too many.

The backup generator flickered overhead.

Somewhere farther down the highway, sirens screamed nonstop through the storm.

Panic spread through the station all over again. 

A man shoved toward the exit. “We have to get out of here!”

“No!” Evelyn snapped.

The words hit harder than she intended.

Everyone froze again.

Bad. They were losing structure. Losing logic. Exactly like before.

“If you run blind out there, they’ll swarm you.”

“How the fuck do you know that?” someone shouted.

Evelyn opened her mouth. Nothing came out. Because she couldn’t exactly answer: I already died once.

The bitten customer suddenly started convulsing on the floor. Hard.

People stumbled backward, crying out.

Blood bubbled from his mouth while his body jerked violently against the tile.

“No, no, no, no—” The cashier burst into tears.

The bitten man stopped moving. Silence crashed through the room. Then his eyes opened again.

Wrong.

Empty.

Hungry.

The transformed infected lunged upward with a guttural shriek.

Rowan shot forward immediately and drove the broken coffee dispenser into the side of its skull before it could reach the nearest customer.

The body collapsed heavily against the tile.

Stillness. Real stillness.

Rowan straightened slowly. Blood streaked across the sleeve of his flannel while rainwater dripped from the brim of his cap. His breathing stayed controlled. But his eyes locked onto Evelyn immediately. Not confusion. Not shocked. Recognition. Like he’d just confirmed something important.

“You’ve seen this before,” he said quietly.

Not an accusation.

Observation.

Too dangerous.

Evelyn tightened her grip on the blood-slick metal pole. “Does it matter right now?”

Outside, more shadows moved through the storm. Too many.

The cracked front windows rattled violently again.

The remaining customers were crying openly now.

Panic was collapsing into helplessness.

Rowan looked towards the windows once. Counting again. Entrances. Bodies. Distance. Then back towards her.

“No,” he said calmly. Then he grabbed a terrified man near the hallway and shoved him toward the back exit.

“Move.”

The command snapped the room back into motion.

People surged toward the employee hallway behind the bathrooms while screams echoed outside the station.

Evelyn stepped backward automatically, tracking movement, counting exits, measuring distances exactly the way survival had taught her before.

A woman suddenly grabbed her wrist hard enough to hurt.

“What do we do?” she cried, pure panic, pure desperation.

Evelyn looked into her terrified eyes and realized with cold certainty:

People were going to die because they couldn’t accept reality fast enough.

She looked back toward Rowan. Toward the blood on his sleeve. The broken coffee dispenser in his hand. The calmness that still hadn’t fully left his face.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

His eyes met hers across the chaos. A beat passed.

Then: “Rowan.”

Another impact slammed against the shattered windows hard enough to shake the entire station.