All Chapters of Project Dakota: Rising of the dead: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

The profound quiet of the apartment was a living thing, a balm on the raw nerves of our entire group. For a long time, no one spoke. We simply existed in the safety Elise had provided, the residual adrenaline of our journey and arrival slowly metabolizing into a deep, bone-melting exhaustion. The light through the window softened from the sharp white of afternoon to the golden hue of late day, painting long, lazy shadows across the floor. Lena’s soft, even breaths from the sofa were a metronome of peace. Carlos’s occasional, contented sigh from the armchair was the sound of a watchman finally standing down.Elise watched me, her eyes tracing the lines of weariness on my face as if reading a map of our ordeal. Her expression was a complex blend of sisterly love and a new, harder-edged assessment. She was seeing not just her younger sibling, but a survivor, a resource. After a while, she squeezed my hand and stood up, her movements practical and quiet.“You should all try to rest proper

The next week settled into a strange, new rhythm. A rhythm that sounded like the clang of the breakfast gong, the thump-thump-thump of morning drills, and the distant, tinny pop-pop-pop from the shooting ranges. Elsie and I had gone to that beginner's session, just like we promised. My hands had shaken so badly holding the pistol that the instructor, a no-nonsense woman named Reyes, had put a steadying hand on my wrist and said, "Breathe, kid. The gun isn't the enemy. Yet." Elsie, to my utter lack of surprise, was a crack shot. Of course she was. She approached it like a math problem—stance, grip, sight alignment, trigger squeeze. It was methodical, precise. I was more... enthusiastic. But I was learning.The whole base was a whirlwind of activity, and our little "unit" was swept up in it. We were assigned jobs, chores, and training. It was during one of these busy afternoons, while I was lugging a crate of surprisingly heavy lightbulbs to the storage closet, that I literally bumped i

The morning after the zombie event felt new. Not just a regular new day, but a clean, fresh-start kind of new. The air even smelled different—less like fear and more like damp earth and the coming autumn. The sun hit the dusty windows of our room and made little sparkles in the air. For the first time in a long time, I woke up and didn't feel a heavy rock of dread in my stomach. I felt... light. My routine felt good, not rushed. A quick, cold shower that made me gasp, but woke me up properly. Pulling on my same old clothes, but they felt softer today. Breakfast was oatmeal, but Jerry had found a jar of honey, and he put a tiny, golden spoonful on mine. It was like a little taste of sunshine. Then, training. The pop-pop-pop of gunfire at the range was my favorite sound now. It wasn't scary; it was powerful. Reyes watched me, her arms crossed. She didn't smile—I don't think her face knew how—but she gave a short, sharp nod. "Better," was all she said, and it felt better than a whole

The heavy thud of the truck doors was the sound of a tomb sealing shut. Inside the gloom, the air was thick with the coppery scent of fear and the fainter, more sinister smell of blood. The engine coughed, then rumbled to life, a diesel-powered heartbeat in a world gone silent. Moe, his knuckles white on the steering wheel, guided the hulking vehicle away from the overrun gas station, leaving behind the echoes of screams and the scrabbling of dead fingers on metal.In the back, crammed amongst supplies and the shell-shocked survivors, the situation was even more dire. Ron cradled his younger brother, Rob, in his lap. The boy’s breathing was a ragged, wet draw, each exhale a shudder that wracked his entire slight frame. The scratch on his back, hidden beneath his torn shirt, felt like a brand burning through to Ron’s soul. He’d seen the frantic, wild look in the thing’s eyes that had done it—a milky, mindless hunger that was nothing like his little brother.Ethel, her face a mask of ma

The news moved through the estate like a sudden, frigid draft, slipping under doors and through the cracks in the old stone walls. It was a whisper at first, a jarring, impossible phrase: Marc shot Kira. I heard it from a maid, her eyes wide with a mixture of horror and gossipy thrill, as I was coming down the main staircase. I stopped dead, my hand freezing on the polished mahogany banister.“What did you say?” I asked, my voice low and disbelieving.She stammered, “It’s Miss Kira, miss. There was an… accident. At the range. Mr. Marc, he… the gun…”I didn’t wait for her to finish. A cold knot tightened in my stomach. An accident with a firearm on the premises was a catastrophic failure of protocol, a nightmare scenario my father had drilled into all of us since we were children. But Marc? Marc was meticulous, a former soldier whose respect for weapons was absolute. The idea that he had negligently discharged a round, let alone hit someone, was fundamentally incompatible with everythi