Chapter1

"Turn off that trash news, Arthur," my father, Thomas, said, dropping his fork heavily onto his porcelain plate.

I didn't reach for the remote. The red scrolling ticker at the bottom of the screen was glaringly harsh: Multiple cities report a series of unprovoked biting attacks.

"It's just the media stirring up panic to cover up the ugly unemployment numbers." He sliced his steak, not even bothering to look up.

I rubbed my dull-aching left knee. It was the only discharge souvenir the army had left me.

Economic recession, factory layoffs. Last week, I lost my job on the assembly line, leaving me no choice but to return to this remote Texas ranch on this godforsaken Christmas Eve.

Going from a soldier holding a rifle to a farmer holding a pitchfork—I hated it, but I had no choice.

"Look at the footage. This doesn't look like a normal riot," I said, pointing at the TV.

On the screen played a shaky cellphone video. A man in a suit lay in a pool of blood while three pedestrians pinned him down, frantically tearing at his neck.

Thomas was about to retort when the TV screen instantly went black.

The dining room plunged into a deathly silence. A split second later, the window panes rattled violently.

A muffled, massive explosion rolled up from the direction of the town in the valley below.

"A transformer blew?" My mother, Mary, wiped her hands nervously in the kitchen.

I shot up from my chair. The frequency of the vibrations traveling through the soles of my boots told me that was no transformer.

It sounded exactly like the pipe bombs I used to hear in the Middle East.

My tactical instincts, dormant for months, instantly awakened. I strode toward the fireplace and snatched the Remington shotgun off the wall.

"Stay in the house. Don't move." I quickly chambered a round and pulled open the heavy front door.

Biting, freezing wind mixed with icy sleet slammed into my face. The Christmas lights on the barn flickered erratically, stretching the shadows in the yard into grotesque, shifting shapes.

Lowering the muzzle of my gun, I crunched through the snow toward the wooden fence on the south side.

In the darkness not far ahead, something was moving.

Two—no, three blurry silhouettes. They were swaying back and forth, pressing their dead weight hard against the rough anti-wolf wooden barricade.

"Hey!" I shouted a warning, my finger resting on the trigger. "This is private property! The highway is half a mile east!"

They didn't stop. The agonizing creak of bending wood cut clearly through the howling night wind.

Drunks from town? Or unemployed thugs looking for trouble at the farm?

I flicked off the safety with my thumb and advanced three steps. "Last warning! Back off!"

The figure in the middle suddenly stopped swaying. Its head snapped toward me at a sickening, unnatural angle.

There was no verbal response. In the next split second, it lunged forward with explosive speed, moving so fast it was barely a blur.

Snap! An oak post as thick as a grown man's thigh was violently snapped in half.

Amidst a shower of wooden splinters, the dark figure breached the perimeter and lunged straight at my face.

Without hesitation, I raised the shotgun and pulled the trigger.

The muzzle flash illuminated the snow. A point-blank blast of buckshot completely obliterated its face.

The massive kinetic impact flipped the figure backward, sending it crashing heavily into a muddy snowdrift.

I stood there panting heavily, my muzzle still trained on the spot. I waited for the screams. I waited for the gush of fresh blood.

Instead, a foul odor invaded my nostrils.

It wasn't the smell of gunpowder, nor the metallic tang of fresh blood. It was the nauseating stench of rotting flesh, like a dead rat decaying under the hot sun.

My stomach churned violently. Keeping my guard up, I slowly edged closer.

Half of the attacker's jaw was gone, leaving jagged bone fragments exposed to the air. Yet, its single remaining eye was locked dead onto me.

Then, its fingers twitched. It actually began pushing against the ground, trying to stand back up.

My mind went blank for a second. A point-blank headshot—there was no way a living human could survive that kind of trauma.

Just as I pumped the shotgun to chamber another round, I heard the sound of shifting gravel behind me.

A lone attacker had somehow slipped past the side gate and was silently charging straight toward my blind spot.

I whipped around, but my boots hit a patch of ice. I slipped, losing my balance.

In that hair-raising moment, a massive silhouette crashed into the fray from the flank.

"Don't just stand there, Arthur!"

It was Bell, the veteran who lived on the neighboring farm. He swung a heavy military entrenching shovel, burying the blade deep into the attacker's shoulder.

Then, a spine-chilling scene unfolded.

The attacker didn't so much as flinch at its shattered collarbone. Completely ignoring the blade wedged into its own flesh, it reached out and grabbed Bell's arm.

"Shoot! Shoot it in the head!" Bell roared, twisting the shovel handle violently to break free.

I quickly regained my footing, pulled the stock tight against my shoulder, and aimed right at the back of the attacker’s head.

The second gunshot tore through the night sky.

With its skull shattered, the creature finally collapsed into a lifeless heap of flesh.

Bell drew the sidearm from his hip, spun around, and put two more rounds into the half-faced thing still writhing on the ground.

The yard finally fell silent, leaving nothing but the sound of our heavy, ragged breathing.

"What the hell are these things?" Bell kicked one of the corpses, his chest heaving.

"They don't feel pain," I said, staring at the mangled bodies. My palms were slick with cold sweat. "They don't understand warnings. They only care about tearing us apart."

This was no disease, and it was no riot. This was pure, unadulterated hunting instinct directed solely at the living.

Right at that moment, the Christmas lights above us flickered twice and died completely.

We were instantly plunged into pitch-black darkness. The power grid had collapsed.

I pulled out my phone. The signal bars in the top left corner were completely empty.

A bloodcurdling scream drifted up on the wind from the direction of the town, accompanied by the flashing glow of continuous explosions.

This was no media fear-mongering. The world was collapsing right before our eyes.

I glanced down at the corpses and tightened my grip on the hot barrel of my shotgun. This Christmas Eve had only just begun.