POV: Zhou Chenghai
"How many?" Xu Zhenlan asked, his voice calm and level, asking the question that mattered most from a tactical perspective.
Chenghai switched between camera angles, counting, trying to get an accurate assessment of the threat level.
The front gate showed at least forty figures, maybe fifty, with more visible in the distance moving toward the property with that same mindless determination.
The side cameras showed smaller clusters, ten or fifteen each, approaching from different directions like they were being drawn by something—sound, movement, the presence of living people behind walls and locked doors.
"Seventy-five to a hundred at the perimeter," he announced after a moment. "And there are more coming."
The gate was solid iron, professionally installed, designed to stop vehicles and deter human intruders. It would hold against the kind of uncoordinated assault he was watching on the cameras.
Probably.
The figures weren't using tools or tactics, weren't trying to climb over or find weak points, just pressing forward and pulling at the bars with that repetitive, mindless motion.
But there were a lot of them. And more were coming.
Jain Yuche had his phone out, dialing, his expression hard and focused in the way it got when he was making decisions that couldn't be unmade. "Lingyun," he said when the call connected. "I need immediate pickup. Current location. Bring everyone."
There was a pause while he listened to whatever response came through.
"I don't care what you have to do," Jian Yuche hissed, his voice flat and absolute. "Get here. Now."
He ended the call and looked at Chenghai, then at Zhenlan, and there was something in his expression that suggested he was recalculating everything he'd thought he understood about the situation, about what was happening, about what came next.
The gun was still in his hand but he wasn't pointing it at anyone anymore, just holding it like it was a familiar weight that provided some measure of comfort in a situation that had stopped making sense.
On the television, another feed cut out mid-broadcast. Then another.
The remaining channels were showing increasingly chaotic footage—emergency services abandoning their posts, military vehicles moving through streets, what looked like entire city blocks on fire.
One channel was just showing a static emergency broadcast message on loop, the kind of thing that was supposed to provide instructions during natural disasters or terrorist attacks, but the instructions were vague and contradictory and ultimately useless.
Stay indoors, avoid contact with infected individuals, wait for further information.
People didn't need the TV to tell them that. That much was instinctual.
Chenghai pulled up the camera feed again, zooming out to get a wider view of the property.
The figures at the gate had increased in number—he counted at least ninety now, maybe more, packed against the iron bars in a mass of reaching arms and snapping jaws and bodies that pressed forward with relentless pressure.
The gate was holding. For now. But the sheer weight of numbers was concerning, and if more kept arriving at the current rate they'd be dealing with hundreds within the hour, maybe thousands by nightfall.
The side cameras showed similar increases.
Every approach to the property was accumulating bodies, drawn by something he couldn't identify—maybe the lights, maybe the sound of the television, maybe just the presence of living people in a world that was rapidly filling with things that weren't alive but wouldn't stop moving.
"The gate will hold," he said, more to himself than to the others. Meanwhile, in his head, he was running the calculations based on structural integrity and weight distribution and the kind of sustained pressure that iron bars could withstand before bending or breaking. "The walls are solid. Ground floor is sealed. We have supplies for extended isolation."
Everything he'd been preparing for over the past two days.
Every call he'd made, every favor he'd called in, every upgrade he'd implemented to turn the house into something defensible.
It had all been based on the assumption that they'd be dealing with human threats—looters, desperate people, maybe organized groups trying to take what they had by force.
Not this.
Not bodies that moved after they should have stopped moving, that didn't respond to pain or fear or any of the normal deterrents that made human threats manageable.
On the screen, another news feed showed what looked like a hospital, the camera positioned at a distance showing figures streaming out of the emergency entrance, some of them in hospital gowns, others in scrubs, all of them moving with that same wrong shambling gait.
The reporter's voice was gone, just raw footage now, no commentary, no attempt to explain or contextualize what was being shown.
Zhenlan set down the remote and looked at Chenghai, and there was a question in his eyes that didn't need to be spoken aloud: Can we survive this?
Chenghai had spent fifteen years in military service learning how to assess threats and develop tactical responses and make decisions under pressure when lives depended on getting it right.
He'd been trained to handle urban combat, hostage situations, asymmetric warfare against enemies who used unconventional tactics and didn't follow the normal rules of engagement.
He'd been discharged for refusing an order that would have meant killing civilians, but the training was still there, the instincts were still there, the ability to look at a situation and determine what needed to be done.
This was different.
This was something his training hadn't prepared him for, something that didn't fit into any existing tactical framework because the enemy wasn't human and didn't operate according to human logic or human limitations.
But the fundamentals still applied. Secure the perimeter. Maintain defensive positions. Preserve resources. Protect the people who mattered.
"We hold," he said simply.
Outside, the moaning grew louder, a chorus of voices that had forgotten how to form words, just raw sound expressing hunger or pain or whatever drove bodies that should have been dead to keep moving, keep hunting, keep pressing forward against barriers that should have stopped them.
Chenghai watched the camera feeds, counting numbers, assessing threat levels, running through contingency plans in his mind. The gate would hold. The walls would hold. The house was secure.
Probably.
And then the first impact hit.
Not at the gate. Not at the walls. At the house itself—something heavy slamming into the reinforced exterior with enough force to echo through the walls and rattle the windows in their frames.
The sound was sharp and violent and wrong, carrying the weight of something that had thrown itself against solid construction with no regard for the damage it would cause to itself.
Chenghai's hand moved to the weapon at his hip, fingers closing around familiar metal, and he pulled up the camera feed showing the side of the house where the impact had originated.
A figure stood there, its head tilted at an unnatural angle, its arms hanging loose at its sides. It had run directly into the wall at full speed, and now it was backing up, preparing to do it again.
Behind it, more figures were approaching.
A lot more.