CHAPTER 1 — PUSHED INTO THE HORDE

Lena (POV).

If there is one thing worse than dying in a zombie apocalypse, it is dying in a zombie apocalypse because your boyfriend and your stepsister are cheap, scheming trash bags with the survival instincts of a drunk hamster.

"Lena, quick! Hand me the sports bag! I need to carry the protein bars so my arms stay limber for combat!" Ethan yelled over the roaring chorus of wet, gurgling moans echoes up the stairwell.

I glared at him, clutching the heavy tactical backpack tightly against my ribs. "You haven't fought a single thing today, Ethan! You used an elderly neighbor as a human shield ten minutes ago!"

"I guided her into a strategic rearguard action!" Ethan shrieked, his voice cracking like a teenager going through a panicked puberty. "Now give me the bag!"

We were trapped on the third-floor landing of the Grandview Residential Complex. Outside, the sky was a bruised, apocalyptic purple. Inside, the stairwell smelled like rotting copper, spilled gasoline, and utter desperation. Down below, dozens of milky-eyed, grey-skinned infected were shoving past each other, clambering up the steps with sickening, jerky movements.

"Lena, please! Just listen to Ethan!" my stepsister, Sera, whined from behind him. Even in the middle of a literal end-of-the-world breakdown, her lip gloss was inexplicably pristine, though her designer trench coat was splattered with mud. "He’s the man! He needs the stamina to lead us out of here! You're just being selfish!"

"Selfish?!" I choked back a hysterical laugh, adjusting my grip on the heavy wrench I’d salvaged from the basement. "I brought the supplies, I mapped the escape route, and I spent twenty minutes prying open the emergency exit while you two took selfies to check if the lighting made you look too pale! If anyone is holding the bag, it’s me!"

A rotten hand with black, cracked fingernails burst through the broken safety glass of the fire door three feet away.

"They're breaking through!" Sera shrieked, jumping behind Ethan and grabbing his jacket, almost knocking him off balance. "Ethan, do something! Punch them! Use your karate!"

"I took two yellow-belt classes in middle school, Sera! I can't yellow-belt a horde of flesh-eating ghouls!" Ethan ducked as a decaying body flopped halfway through the shattered door frame, snapping its yellowed teeth together with a loud, wooden CLACK.

"Move your legs and run up to the roof!" I yelled, shoving Ethan's shoulder toward the upper stairs. "The fire ladder reaches the lower alley! If we drop down, we can reach the vehicle!"

We sprinted up the concrete steps, the sound of tearing metal and smashing wood echoing behind us as the door finally gave way. The roar of the horde filled the enclosed stairwell, a wall of guttural, wet snarls that sent a cold spike of pure adrenaline straight into my spine.

We reached the roof door. I lunged forward, grabbed the heavy iron bar, and slammed my weight against it.

CLICK.

It was locked. A thick, rust-encrusted padlock held the heavy chain in place.

"It's locked!" I yelled, turning around to face them. "Ethan, hand me the tire iron from your side pocket! I can break this latch!"

Ethan didn't reach for the tire iron. Instead, he backed away toward the edge of the rooftop access platform, staring at me with a strange, jittery terror in his eyes.

"Ethan?" I frowned. "The tire iron! Hand it over!"

Sera grabbed Ethan’s arm, her eyes darting between me, the heavy backpack on my shoulders, and the stairwell door below us, which was already shuddering under the weight of the oncoming infected.

"Ethan... there's not enough room in the two-seater convertible in the alley," Sera whispered, her voice carrying clearly in the narrow space. "And the backpack takes up the whole footwell."

My brain took a terrifying, fraction-of-a-second pause to process her words. "What did you just say?"

"Lena, babe, look at it logically," Ethan said, his voice trembling as he took a slow step toward me, his hands raised in a pathetic attempt to look calming. "You're... you're very aggressive. You have high stress levels. You probably wouldn't survive the long-term psychological impact of society collapsing anyway."

"Are you insane?!" I yelled, swinging the wrench defensively. "I saved your life five minutes ago!"

"And we appreciate that! Truly!" Sera chirped, her voice dripping with fake, syrupy sweetness. "We’ll remember your sacrifice forever! We’ll even name our first kid after you!"

"You two are dating?!" I blinked, utterly baffled by the sheer, absurd timing of the revelation. "We've been together for three years, Ethan!"

"It was an emotional affair that recently transitioned into physical during the initial panic!" Ethan stammered defensively. "It’s a high-pressure environment, Lena! People make mistakes!"

Before I could bring my wrench down on Ethan’s useless, handsome nose, the stairwell door exploded inward.

A surge of grey, blood-stained bodies burst onto the landing. The scent of foul decay hit my nostrils like a physical punch.

"Lena!" Ethan bellowed, his face twisting into a mask of theatrical sorrow. "We'll save you!"

He didn't try to save me. He lunged forward, grabbed the straps of my backpack with both hands, and yanked with all his strength.

The sudden loss of balance threw me backward. As I stumbled toward the edge of the steps, Sera darted forward with surprising agility for someone wearing two-inch platform boots, locked her hands against my chest, and gave a sharp, vicious shove.

"Sorry, sis! Survival of the fittest!" Sera squeaked.

I tumbled backward over the railing, falling through the air for two agonizing seconds before slamming hard onto the middle landing below. The impact knocked the wind out of my lungs in a sharp, painful gasp. My wrench clattered away, bouncing down the concrete steps into the darkness.

I looked up, coughing, my vision swimming with red spots.

Ethan and Sera were standing at the top of the stairs, peering over the railing. Ethan was already slipping my backpack onto his shoulders, while Sera waved a pathetic, timid little goodbye with her fingertips.

"Lena!" Ethan yelled down, his voice echoing with comical insincerity. "Don't worry! We'll tell your dad you died bravely!"

"You absolute piece of filth!" I screamed, choking on my own blood as I tried to push myself up. "If I survive this, I am going to tear your legs off and beat you to death with them!"

"She's delusionally aggressive!" Sera gasped, pulling Ethan back. "Run, honey, run!"

Their footsteps faded as they bolted up toward the roof hatch, leaving me alone on the dark, blood-splattered landing.

And then, the noise returned.

Scritch. Scratch. Gurgle.

I turned my head slowly.

Standing three feet away from me was a tall, heavily mutated infected. Its jaw was unhinged, hanging at an impossible angle, dripping black, viscous sludge onto the concrete. Its milky eyes rolled in their sockets before locking onto my trembling form. Behind it, a dozen more were climbing over each other, squeezing up the narrow staircase like an avalanche of rotting flesh.

"Okay," I croaked, trying to drag my bruised body backward against the wall. "Let's be reasonable here. I'm mostly bone and spite. I taste terrible."

The leader ghoul didn't care about my culinary profile. It hissed, a sound like steam escaping a cracked pipe, and lunged forward.

I threw my arm up to guard my neck.

CRUNCH.

Pain—hot, searing, like liquid fire being injected straight into my veins—exploded through my forearm as rotten teeth punctured skin, muscle, and flesh. I screamed, a raw, primal sound that echoed off the concrete walls. Another set of teeth clamped onto my shoulder. Another sank into my leg.

"Get... off... me!" I snarled, slamming my free elbow into the lead zombie's temple with everything I had left. The bone cracked under my blow, but the creature didn't even flinch. It just bit down harder, its black blood dripping into my open wounds.

The world began to tilt. The agonizing pain in my arm began to recede, replaced by a strange, icy numbness that spread rapidly through my bloodstream, moving from my limbs straight toward my heart.

Is this it? I thought bitterly as my vision started to dim at the edges, darkening into a hazy fringe of deep crimson. Killed by zombies because I trusted a guy who uses hair gel during a biological collapse?

My heart gave one last, violent, shuddering thump inside my chest.

TH-THUMP.

And then, it stopped.

My breathing ceased. My lungs flattened. The cold sensation flooded my brain, freezing my thoughts in place. I felt my body go entirely limp as the horde swarmed over me, tearing at my clothes and flesh.

Except... I didn't lose consciousness.

The pain was completely gone. In its place was a bizarre, crystal-clear awareness. I couldn't move my fingers. I couldn't blink my eyes. My heart was as dead as a stone inside my ribs. But inside the dark, sealed room of my own skull, my mind was running at three hundred miles an hour.

Wait, I thought, testing the silence inside my own head. Why am I still thinking?

I looked out through my frozen, half-open eyes. The lead zombie was still gnawing on my shoulder, but its movements were slowing down. It stopped biting, raised its grey, rotting head, and sniffed the air around my neck.

Then, slowly, it backed away. It let out a soft, low whine, like a confused dog, and turned its attention elsewhere.

Around me, the other infected began to disperse, wandering aimlessly around the landing, completely ignoring my motionless body lying in a pool of my own dark, cooling blood.

They... they stopped eating me?

I tried to command my right hand to move. Nothing happened. I was completely paralyzed, trapped inside my own infected, breathless corpse, watching through a narrow slit of vision as the zombie apocalypse raged on around me.

I wasn't dead. But I definitely wasn't human anymore.

And as I lay there on the cold concrete, locked inside the shell of a monster, only one thought burned through the icy darkness of my mind:

Ethan. Sera. You two better run fast.