The Virus Within: Secrets Unraveled (Book 5)

Ch 16: Danger In The Dark

I snuck through a hole in the fence and kept to the shadows as I entered the town and circled the perimeter. My shoes left a few tracks in the soft dirt beside the buildings, but I forced myself to ignore them since my scent would be leaving a far more prominent trail in the darkness.

No humans were present, and all the livestock had become zombie snacks. Pausing at the sight of fist-sized holes near the base of a barn wall, I checked the air again. There weren't even any rats left.

Nightstalkers weren't the type to hunt like that. If we were desperate enough to go after something that small, we'd wait by an entrance, not smash our hands through barn boards.

I silently moved closer to the center of town, trying to pinpoint the Terror's location. I suspected it had holed itself up in a room somewhere, but its scent trails were all over the place.

Human and animal bones were scattered everywhere. The remains of the blood-stained clothing—work clothes, not nightwear—suggested that the attack had happened during the day, and that it had happened quickly.

I frowned at the rifle and handful of shells that lay beneath a guard post. They had definitely tried to stop the zombie, but I didn't even smell any spilled blood from it. It must have been fast to avoid that many rounds.

I peeked into a garage, but no zombies lingered inside the truck- and van-filled space. That was one downside of wood gas vehicles. It took them a while to warm up and made them an impractical choice during a zombie attack when every minute could mean the difference between life and death.

A faint metallic scent reached my nose. The hair on the back of my neck prickled, and my instincts shifted in alarm. I jumped to the side, turning to face the zombie behind me. I snarled at the Nightstalker—how had she snuck up behind me so easily?

She returned my greeting and began circling me, her hands held to the side for a First Strike match. Her scent warned me of the Terror triggers she sported. My sneaking skills would be useless if I had scratch marks on my arms. This wasn't a fight I was interested in.

Clenching my jaw against bruised pride, I turned my head and body sideways with a faint growl, conceding the victory to her. She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head as if in disbelief. I kept a close eye on her unusual behavior; normally, a feral Nightstalker would accept the win with an air of superiority and a victory cry.

I slowly shifted my far hand behind my back and held onto the sickle handle. As if she had picked up the defiance in my scent, she shrieked and lunged at me. She was fast—faster than me—but not by much, and not quite as fast as the one Regan and I had faced last night.

I managed to get my sickle up in time to slash her chest while aiming a punch at her head. Her nails ripped through the shoulder of my hoodie as the blow sent her off course. I immediately jumped onto the garage roof and spun around, but she didn't follow me.

When I peered over the edge, she glared up at me with bared teeth and shrieked a challenge into the night sky. Her eyes remained locked on me as I wiped the sickle blade with a scrap of fabric and tucked it back into its sheath. I pulled my bow off my backpack.

Blood ran down her shirt and dripped onto the ground from the wound she was oblivious to. I took aim and made my eyes glow brightly as I released the arrow. Her gaze remained locked onto mine, and she skipped back a step to avoid the headshot. The arrow plowed into her chest, and she shrieked in rage at the unexpected blow.

I moved my hands into First Strike position, and with the smell of her blood hanging heavy on the air, she turned her body sideways like I had previously done. She darted behind a building, clawing at the arrow in her chest, but I had a suspicion she'd be back before long.

Taking a chance, I turned my radio volume up and whispered, "Be careful, there's an unranked Nightstalker in the area. She's bleeding and doesn't believe some zombie rules."

He didn't reply, and I hoped it meant he was trying to avoid making noise for my sake. Crashing from the side made me crouch down on the roof to make myself less noticeable. A deep growl emanated from the red-eyed zombie that staggered down the road and blundered into the corner of a building that took more damage than he did.

At least I didn't have to go looking for the Terror anymore. The fight must have attracted him. I kept very still and took slow, even breaths as he blindly made his way down the street. The Nightstalker appeared in the shadows behind him—the arrow no longer lodged in her chest—and silently leapt at his unprotected back.

My blood ran cold as the Terror spun around and struck the Nightstalker. Her ribs crunched as the blow sent her tumbling into the side of a building. He pounced on her, and his jaws clamped onto her shoulder. He promptly let go and stood up with an annoyed snort at the repugnant taste of zombie blood.

I remained very still. He had somehow heard her even though she had used the same ambush technique that occasionally worked against Daniel. I was suddenly very glad I hadn't been planning on trying to kill this zombie. I wasn't sure I could. At least he understood zombie rules and had no interest in attacking or eating another zombie. He ignored the Nightstalker as she struggled to her feet and limped away.

A regular zombie tottered by, and the Terror's head followed him with the same unfocused gaze Daniel used when tracking by sound in the darkness. His nostrils flared before he ignored the zombie. Then he took a second sniff and came this way.

I checked my clothing; the Nightstalker's nails had sliced through the fabric on my shoulder without reaching my skin, but several droplets of her blood were splattered across my hoodie. Thinking fast, I pulled the hoodie off as silently as I could and lobbed it to the ground on the other side of the street. I checked my t-shirt but there hadn't been enough blood to soak through and contaminate it.

The zombie's face followed the sound of the fabric as it fell and landed in the grass with a dull thwap. He stumbled over and picked it up, carefully sniffing it in a fashion I'd never seen before, even when a sane Nightstalker was digging into a scent.

I wasn't sure how much Terrors relied on their sense of smell, but was it possible he knew every zombie in this place by scent and realized there was a new player in town? Or was he detecting human smells he hadn't encountered before? The wind was blowing toward me, so he wouldn't be able to pick up my scent on the wind.

I kept my eyes camouflaged as I regarded him. His blonde hair was trimmed short and nowhere near as ragged or disheveled as most ferals. His bloodstained clothing had plenty of tears, and the remains of his shirt were more open air than cloth, but the fabric itself didn't look aged. He hadn't been a zombie for very long. I was too far away to check for an underlying human afterscent, but I somehow suspected it coincided with this place's demise.

Still holding my hoodie, he began walking in circles while staring at the ground and sniffing. He occasionally stumbled over uneven patches as his circling widened. When he came close to the scent trail I'd left when approaching the garage, he veered away from his former search pattern and began following my path. He paused at the spot I'd fought the Nightstalker and gave a faint growl as he began searching for my trail that had seemingly disappeared.

Keeping low, I eased across the roof as quietly as I could. There was no way to tell where the trusses were beneath the shingles, nor which spots might creak. Even though I couldn't hear my footsteps, I wasn't even halfway across the roof before something heavy landed on the roof behind me. My heart sped up as the zombie joined me on the roof.

This was not what I wanted.