Chapter 1

On the third day of the outbreak, I sat in my company’s executive conference room, gripping the red toy car I bought for my six-year-old son.

Outside the door were zombies filling the building. Beside me were six executives still breathing only because I was.

They wanted meetings. They wanted to wait for rescue. They wanted to chain me with morality.

But I wanted one thing—my son was still in daycare. Three days. No one went for him.

At dawn, I opened the door they’d barricaded shut.

I can shoot. I can clear a path. I will carve my way through to bring him back.

Anyone who stands in my way dies.

————

I’d been gripping the little red toy car for almost an hour.

Sweat from my palm had made the plastic slick, and there was a faint scrape along one corner—something it picked up over the last few days.

I bought it last week and left it in my desk drawer, planning to give it to my son this week.

I’d meant to wait until the weekend, when he came home from kindergarten, and hand it to him myself.

Lately he’d kept asking why cars couldn’t fly. He said if the color was bright enough, it should be able to lift off.

Now the toy sat in my hand, quiet as a stone.

I was sitting in a corner of the executive conference area, my back against one wall. A handgun, a knife, and a packed backpack rested by my legs.

They’d shoved the long conference table up against the door and piled file cabinets and a water dispenser on top of it, blocking the entrance and leaving only a narrow gap—just wide enough for one person to squeeze through sideways. Overhead, the emergency lights flickered on and off, washing the room in a cold, ashy glow. The generator was still running somewhere below, its hum vibrating up through the floor. Other than that, the conference room was still. Every so often, a dull, intermittent thud carried in from the hallway—metal on metal, like a door taking hits. Not fast, not constant, but it never fully stopped.

I looked toward the far end of the room. A few office chairs had been shoved together; several people were asleep under blankets. One leaned against the wall, one curled beside the sofa, another lay flat on the carpet. None of them looked comfortable, but nobody had the energy to care.

Three days ago, they’d been the kind of people who issued orders, fired off emails, and signed off on decisions in meetings. Now they didn’t even dare take their shoes off to sleep.

“You should get some rest.”

The voice was quiet, coming from my right.

I turned my head and saw Marcus sitting by the doorway. I hadn’t noticed when he woke up. He still had a metal bar in his hands—something he’d pulled from the maintenance shop.

His face was pale, his eyes bloodshot. Even now, he spoke with his voice lowered, like he was afraid of waking something up.

“It’ll be okay.” He licked his cracked lips, sounding like he was trying to convince himself as much as me. “Your kid’s going to be fine. The radio mentioned a rally point, didn’t it? The city’s got an assembly site. Maybe rescue shows up tomorrow.”

I didn’t answer. I just tightened my grip on the toy car.

Marcus glanced at me and let it drop.

He was the only friend I had left in this pharmaceutical company’s office tower.

My name is Rain. I’m thirty-six. I spent a few years in the military, got out, and ended up here as head of security. The pay was decent and the work was dull. Most days I dealt with visitor badges, broken cameras, employee disputes, and the executives’ favorite complaint—“that person shouldn’t be on this floor.”

In other words, a security guy in a suit with a keycard.

My wife died a long time ago. It’s just me and my son.

He’s six, and he goes to a private kindergarten on the west side of the city.

I start work early. He wakes up late. Most mornings I’d pack his breakfast into a thermos box, then walk him out to the school bus. When I bought the toy car last week, he didn’t know. I planned to pick him up with the gift once this week’s work calmed down, and tell him that if he behaved, I’d take him to see a real race at the end of the month.

Then, three days ago, the world changed.

At first it was just a disturbance in the lobby downstairs. Someone ran in shouting about a violent attack—people biting other people in the street. The receptionist thought the guy was high. Security moved to restrain him, and within minutes the radios turned into pure chaos. Screams, running footsteps, things crashing—everything blended together.

When I reached the first floor, the security gate was down, the floor was smeared with blood, and a man was on top of the receptionist. He wasn’t punching her.

He was chewing into her face.

I fired.

It was the first gunshot in the entire building.

After that, it unraveled fast. Some people wanted to lock the building down. Others tried to rush outside. Some clung to laptops and document boxes like those were worth more than their lives.

Senior management first ordered everyone back to their work areas to wait for instructions. Then they changed their minds and demanded an emergency meeting on the top floor. Someone got scratched, started burning with fever and shaking. Ten minutes later, they were attacking the person next to them.

The elevators clogged. The stairwells turned into choke points. Cell service degraded by the hour. By nightfall, there weren’t many of us left alive.

I was the one who led the survivors into this executive conference room.

There were six people alive in here besides me—seven including me.

Marcus was the maintenance supervisor, in his forties. Over the last three days he’d helped me move furniture, barricade doors, and keep the generator running. He was the most reliable person left.

Thomas was an administrative assistant. Not brave, talked too much. He’d always been good at reading the wind, but he wasn’t a bad person—at least he hadn’t done anything to hurt anyone so far.

Grant was an operations manager in his early thirties. Too proud for his own good, always convinced his judgment was solid.

The remaining three were corporate executives. Victor was the vice president, used to giving orders. Even now, he still sounded like he was running a meeting.

Simon was head of legal. His favorite tool was a rulebook. When trouble hit, his first instinct wasn’t to help—it was to figure out who would be blamed.

Audrey ran public relations. She cared about appearances and control, even with the world falling apart.

Three days ago, all of them thought they mattered more than I did. Now they were alive mostly because I wasn’t dead yet.

The room helped. Thick door, few windows. With a table and cabinets shoved into place, it made a workable barrier. There was a small kitchenette and a storage room close by, which made water and supplies easier to manage. We dragged in anything we could carry and lived on bottled water, snacks, a few boxes of crackers, and whatever first-aid supplies we could find. During the day we watched the hall through a crack in the barricade and the building cameras. At night we took turns on the door. The radio still worked, but the signal came and went—broken fragments of the outside world. Someone mentioned a stadium, said it was being used as a gathering point for survivors, with soldiers and supplies. But the message sounded like it was coming through water—blurred, chopped up, impossible to verify.

On day one, everyone believed rescue would arrive soon. On day two, someone kept pressing their ear to the barricade, listening for footsteps. By day three, the room had gone tight and restless.

Because nobody came.

No helicopters. No convoy. No radio callouts. Nothing. It was like the city had simply forgotten this building existed.

I glanced at my watch.

4:47 a.m.

In a little over an hour, it would be daylight.

I’d run the route in my head again and again. Down from the executive floor, take the west stairwell, avoid the main lobby, and go straight into the underground garage.

Over the past few days I’d found several sets of car keys in the abandoned offices. There should be drivable vehicles in the garage. The tanks might not be full, but they’d be enough to break out.

Once outside, the safest plan was to avoid the main roads, cut south through the business district, then head west. The kindergarten wasn’t close. If the streets were blocked, it could take two hours—maybe longer.

But any length of time was better than sitting here, waiting for rescue that wasn’t coming.

I picked up my handgun, pulled the magazine, checked the rounds, and seated it again—smooth and automatic.

The knife went back into the strap on my calf. Flashlight, map, keys, bandages, two bottles of water—I checked each one and packed them away.

Marcus watched me and finally understood I wasn’t thinking.

I was preparing.

“You’re really going?” he asked.

“At first light.” My voice stayed flat.

“Alone?”

I looked up at him and didn’t answer right away.

I knew the trip would be dangerous. If someone didn’t want to come, I wasn’t going to drag them. If someone chose to follow, I wouldn’t stop them.

I’d lead. I’d open doors. I’d clear the way. I’d do what I could to keep the group alive.

But I wasn’t going to chain myself to this room just to make other people feel safe.

A heavy bang came from the hallway outside, like something had slammed into a security door below. Then another.

I stood up, clipped the holster at my side, slung the backpack over my shoulder, and took one last look at the sleeping shapes in the room.

Victor was curled on the long sofa. Simon leaned against the water dispenser. Audrey still had a suit jacket draped over her from yesterday. Thomas slept lightly, already frowning, like the noise had started to pull him awake.

They weren’t fully awake yet.

But they would be.

I turned toward the narrow gap in the barricade—the sliver of darkness beyond the table and cabinets.

I flexed my fingers, tightened my grip around the little red car, and spoke so softly only I could hear it.

“Wait for me.”