Chapter 33 – Shadows Over UNILAG
The library burned behind them, a funeral pyre for knowledge and safety alike. The flames licked the night sky, turning smoke into a black pillar that carried whispers of desperation across the campus. For Adewale and the handful of survivors at his back, there was no time to look back. They were already running, feet pounding against the cracked pavement, breath burning in their lungs.
The horde was awake now.
From every corridor, stairwell, and darkened classroom, the moans rose like a hymn of hunger. The dead swarmed toward the fire, but enough of them smelled the sharp tang of sweat, fear, and flesh fleeing through the night. The survivors were the prize, and UNILAG's grounds had become an arena.
Ngozi stumbled, clutching her stick like it could hold back the world. "They're faster tonight," she whispered, her voice cracking.
"They're always faster," Ifeoma spat, her hand pressed against her ribs where purple bruises bloomed. Her eyes darted toward Adewale. "Tell me you have a plan."
"I do," Adewale said, though his voice was steel and ice rather than comfort. "We reach the tower." He pointed east, where the radio mast rose above the ruins, a skeletal finger clawing at the heavens. "Signal. Height. A chance."
Musa barked a laugh that broke into coughing. His ribs still ached from the last fight. "A chance to climb into another graveyard."
"Better than waiting here for teeth in our throats," Adewale shot back.
There was no more arguing. The pounding of dozens—no, hundreds—of feet behind them was enough to remind them all that hesitation was death.
They wove through the campus grounds, darting between overturned cars, sidestepping pools of blood that shimmered black under the moonlight, and leaping over bodies that twitched with half-life. Every shadow threatened teeth. Every echo was a trap.
Halfway across the quad, Ngozi's stick snapped against the broken asphalt. She went down screaming as a corpse, hidden beneath another body, lunged for her ankle.
"Ya Allah!" Musa cried, stumbling forward despite the fire in his ribs.
Adewale was already moving. His machete whistled through the night and split the corpse's skull in two. Black ichor sprayed across Ngozi's face as he yanked her upright with brutal force.
"Move or die!" he barked, shoving her forward before the dead could close the gap.
They ran harder, lungs screaming. The radio tower grew closer, but so did the horde. Dozens of shapes cut across the moonlight, eyes gleaming with unnatural hunger. Some still shuffled. Others sprinted. A few leapt like wild dogs, claws extended. The dead were learning.
The survivors' breaths turned to sobs as they neared the chain-link fence surrounding the base of the tower. For a heartbeat, hope bloomed.
Then Adewale saw the rusted gate.
It was chained shut. Heavy links coiled around it, locked in place with a padlock that hadn't moved in years.
The moans behind them swelled into a wave.
Ifeoma staggered forward, staring at the gate like it had betrayed her. "No… no, this can't—"
Adewale didn't waste a second. His machete came down hard on the chain. Sparks burst into the night. He swung again, muscles screaming, jaw clenched with fury.
"Faster!" Tunde cried, eyes wide with terror.
Ngozi wept openly, pressing her back to the fence. "They're coming!"
The first of the horde broke from the shadows, sprinting now, jaws snapping, claws reaching.
Adewale roared. His machete struck again and again. Metal screamed, cracked, and finally split. The chain snapped loose. The gate swung open with a shriek of rust.
"GO!"
The survivors poured inside. Musa, gasping from the pain in his chest, slammed the gate shut behind them. Hands and claws shot through the gaps immediately, grasping, tearing at the air. The survivors pressed together, shoving the gate closed while Adewale looped the broken chain around it in a desperate knot.
The horde slammed against the metal. The fence bent inward with every strike. The moans rose to a deafening pitch, a storm battering against their bones.
Inside the compound, the base of the tower loomed like a fortress. A steel door waited ahead, cracked open. Adewale shoved it wide and herded them inside.
The door clanged shut. Darkness fell.
For a long moment, only the survivors' ragged breathing filled the void.
Ngozi whispered into the black, "Did we… survive?"
Adewale's eyes adjusted slowly. Shapes emerged: broken crates, shattered equipment, and stairs winding upward into deeper shadows. But what caught his attention froze his blood more than the horde outside.
Fresh footprints marred the dust. Faint light flickered from above, too steady to be fire, too deliberate to be chance.
They were not alone.
His grip on the machete tightened until his knuckles whitened.
"No," he said softly, grimly. "This is just the next fight."
Ngozi whimpered. Ifeoma spat blood into the corner. Musa leaned against the wall, every breath a curse. And above them, something moved. Heavy boots on metal stairs. Voices, hushed but unmistakable.
Adewale glanced at the others, his expression unreadable in the dim glow. "Stay close. Stay ready."
The moans of the dead outside thundered against the steel walls. Inside, silence pressed down like a vice.
Step by step, Adewale led them upward, into the unknown.
The night was far from over.
.