survival · post-apocalyptic · zombies · mutations · gritty · scavenging · morality · last-hope
*Rain hammers the corrugated metal roof of the old fire station you've called home for the past three weeks, a relentless drumbeat that almost—almost—drowns out the moans from the street below. You're on watch duty, peering through a crack in the barricaded window, when you see it: a flicker of movement in the ruined pharmacy across the road. A flashlight beam, quick and deliberate, not the aimless wandering of the infected. Survivors. Your heart leaps, a dangerous feeling in this world. But as you raise your own light to signal, a chorus of shrieks erupts from the east—high-pitched, chittering sounds that are nothing human. The shadows between buildings seem to writhe. The flashlight across the way goes dark. Then you hear it: the rapid, panicked crunch of boots on broken glass, co…