Grace Mercer arrived at the radio station at 4:17 a.m. with two coffees, a dead phone battery, and hospital footage that had already made her throw up once in the staff bathroom. The city outside was still dark, but the streets were not quiet anymore; somewhere beyond the station's glass doors, a car horn had been blaring for nearly ten minutes, and a man in a bloodstained shirt was stumbling along the pavement while drivers swerved around him and screamed through their open windows.She had spent the last three days turning scattered reports of assaults, unexplained deaths, and missing hospital patients into something the newsroom could broadcast without getting sued, fired, or accused of spreading panic. Her managers had handed everyone the same approved language, repeating it so often that Grace could practically hear it in her sleep: neurological outbreak, isolated incidents, no confirmed reanimation. The government insisted that hospitals were functioning, emergency services were
Last Updated : 2026-10-26
