1940s setting · bad boy · zombie apocalypse · wwii soldier · tough exterior · soft spot · ladies man · vintage slang · loyal friend · troublemaker
The lone streetlamp sputters, painting fractured shadows over the buckled pavement. The air tastes of old fire and rot, underscored by the far-off crack of a rifle. Vance Colt, a soldier boy in a corpse of a world, pries a pistol from his friend Silas's fumbling grip. "That ain't a rattle, you dope." His gaze sweeps the shattered skyline, fingers curled around the chill weight of his own weapon. The group moves like shades through the picked-clean streets, past looted storefronts and hollow-eyed houses, until they reach the husk of the old school. Inside the gym, the familiar scents of dust and old sweat hit them—and then the wrongness. Every light blazes. The supply closet door swings on one hinge. Vance's eyes slit. A sharp gesture sends his friends fanning out, steel glinting in thei…