Chapter 1

In a world overrun by zombies, survivors built a fortress—and my fiancée and I joined its action unit.  

To help her secure her position, I turned down leadership’s offer to run my own squad and stayed by her side as the “invisible” second-in-command.

For a full year, I made the tactics, wrote the contingencies, and cleaned up every mission.  

She took my plans as her own credit—and let the team treat me like dead weight.

Then, on one operation, she ignored my orders and changed the plan on the fly. Disaster followed.  

In the debrief, she blamed everything on me in front of everyone.

I resigned on the spot.

Not long after, I took command of a new squad—and delivered the cleanest record in the entire base.  

Her unit couldn’t even finish routine recovery runs.

Until a mandated joint op put our teams at the same rally point—  

and she finally realized the “legendary captain” was me.

————

The off-road SUV bucked and tore down the highway cutting through the dead city. I kept the throttle pinned; every bounce felt like it might fling a man out of his seat.

Ben lay in the passenger seat. The seat belt cut across his chest. The bandage around his abdomen had already soaked through, a dark ring of blood spreading wider. His breathing was so shallow it was barely there.

His face was wax-pale, sweat beading across his forehead. His eyelids hung half shut, his awareness blinking in and out.

The sky was pressing down.

In the distance, the clouds were sliced into a dull red by the dying light. The air cooled fast, and the shadows of abandoned buildings stretched longer by the second.

Dusk wasn’t a romantic word to us. It was a deadline—once it went fully dark, sight, noise, and scent all got amplified, and the dead would pour from alleys and side streets like a tide, swallowing anything that moved.

I flicked my eyes to the rearview mirror. The glass shook so hard I could only make out an empty road and a few blurred dots far behind.

I was about to drop another gear when the engine suddenly sagged.

The next second, the whole vehicle lurched.

The steering went light. Power died.

I swore, hit the brakes, and held the SUV steady slightly right of center so we wouldn’t slide into the broken drainage ditch along the shoulder.

My fingers snapped the ignition over. The engine coughed a few dull thuds—then went dead silent.

I tried again. Nothing.

A line of errors jumped across the dashboard. I didn’t have time to read them—only caught that the battery and temperature were both deep in the red.

I looked up. The last of the light was fading.

Then I listened. The distant sounds weren’t scattered anymore. They’d blended into a low, heavy roar—like surf rolling in, closer and closer.

Dragging this out wasn’t “maybe something happens.”

It was “we will get surrounded.”

I don’t allow myself to hesitate at times like this. I switched plans immediately—abandon the vehicle.

I shoved the door open and got out, circled to the rear, popped the trunk. My flashlight swept the inside. I knew where everything sat like a memorized grid.

Rifle first—check the bolt, check the safety, sling over my shoulder. Pistol back to my waist, magazine seated. Knife in its fixed sheath, draws clean.

The med kit was jammed in the corner. I yanked it out and stuffed it into the side pocket of my pack; I could find the tourniquet and gauze by touch alone.

Light and supplies were thin, but they were nonnegotiable—flashlight, two glow sticks, two bottles of water, compressed rations. I crammed them in, zipped the bag shut.

The moment the pack hit my shoulders, I looked back into the cab.

Ben was still in the passenger seat.

I opened the door, tightened the pressure on his abdominal bandage, unclicked the belt, and hauled him out of the seat.

He was light. I got him onto my back, shifted my center of gravity, hooked his arms over my shoulders, then cinched him in with a strap so he wouldn’t slip. I checked the hold twice.

Then I carried Ben off the road, dropped into the shallow low ground beside it, and moved along the building shadows.

The howls came and went on the wind. Every time they swelled closer, it reminded me: we were racing time.

We had to get back to Redstone Base as fast as possible.

Redstone Base was a safe settlement established not long after the outbreak—survivors behind walls, rations standardized, all outside operations controlled by the Operations Division.

My name is Leo Grayson. I’m the deputy leader and tactical lead of Redstone’s field team.

The man on my back is Ben Harper. He’s one of my operators.

We’re both members of Redstone’s field unit.

The job is simple and brutal: go beyond the wall and bring back fuel and equipment, even if that means cutting through the filthiest blocks of the dead city.

There are seven of us in this team. This run was a salvage op. Target: a “generator core.”

Our team leader, McKenna, is my fiancée.

A year ago, Operations offered me my own team. I could’ve formed a unit, taken full command—walked out clean.

But I stayed.

The reason was simple: I wouldn’t leave McKenna to sink.

She was proud. She wanted to prove she could carry the leader’s seat.

So I stayed on as deputy, handled tactics and withdrawal contingencies, hoping she’d grow through real missions. Once she could truly stand on her own, I could leave then.

At first, everything went smoothly.

She took advice. She was willing to review. When something went wrong, she’d ask me, “What’s the next move?”

But little by little, she changed.

She started caring more about looking good. More about how people judged her decisions.

I kept telling myself it was just pressure.

What happened a few hours ago ripped that comfort right out of me.

Before we deployed, McKenna told me to prepare two action plans.

I wrote them fast. Plan One was conservative and safe—stick to the route and extract on schedule. Plan Two let us haul extra salvage, but the risk was extreme.

I spelled it out clearly: default to Plan One. Unless the conditions were met, nobody was to initiate Plan Two.

McKenna agreed without hesitation. Said we’d run Plan One.

During execution, the team spread out. Ben and I stayed behind to close things down, covering everyone’s withdrawal.

Then McKenna’s voice came over the common channel. She announced Plan Two—said we’d grab extra material on the way, that we had “enough time.”

I switched to a private channel and warned her low and sharp. “Conditions aren’t there. Fall back on Plan One.”

I even listed the risk points one by one, told her to pull out immediately.

She didn’t listen.

She kept pushing over the radio, like a firm enough tone could make danger disappear.

That’s how the extraction window collapsed.

The route stretched. Noise stacked. The dead got drawn in.

By the time Ben and I caught up, the lead element was forced to sprint—and nobody wanted to turn around for us.

Ben got hit in the chaos. I had no choice but to lock down the bleeding, strap him up, and punch through the encirclement.

I crushed those thoughts and forced my focus onto the path in front of me.

At the end of the shadows was an uphill slope. At the top of it lay the last open stretch.

My legs started to burn. The straps bit into my flesh. I didn’t stop.

I carried Ben up the final incline. When I lifted my head, the first thing I saw was the light strip along the wall—a steady line stretching across the ramparts, like it was keeping the darkness outside.

Redstone Base’s gate was right ahead.