Survival In The Zombie Outbreak

The hinges gave with a wet groan. Inside, rainwater stains crawled down the walls, though the ceiling above had been dry for months. The lobby smelled of mold, old wiring, and the sharp animal stink of something nesting behind the counter. She raised her flashlight and swept the beam over overturned chairs, a collapsed rack of brochures, and a child’s red boot lying alone beneath the ticket window.

Her boots crunched over glass.

“Power room,” she whispered.

The flashlight beam caught a hallway leading toward the rear. At its end, a metal door bore a faded lightning-bolt symbol. Mara crossed the lobby slowly, pausing whenever the building creaked. The radio at her hip remained silent.

That was worse than the static.

She tried the power-room handle. Locked.

Mara drew the knife and slid its point into the gap beside the latch. A twist, a hard shove, and the lock snapped. The door swung inward.

The generator sat beneath a tarp, its casing filmed with gray dust. A line of fuel cans stood against the wall. Mara counted them with her light.

Three.

She opened the first. Empty. The second held a finger’s depth of cloudy fuel. The third sloshed when she lifted it.

“Please,” she said, though there was no one to hear.

The generator coughed when she poured the fuel in. It coughed again, spat a dark puff through the exhaust, and died.

Mara closed her eyes.

From somewhere in the station came a soft scrape.

She turned off the flashlight.

The darkness pressed close. Her fingers tightened around the knife. Another scrape followed, then a dull knock against the lobby glass.

Not wind.

Mara moved to the power-room doorway and looked out. A pale face drifted past the broken window. Its mouth opened and closed against the glass, teeth tapping softly.

A second figure stumbled into view.

Then a third.

The station’s front doors shuddered.

Mara backed toward the generator. Walkers had been drawn by the sound. Maybe by her. Either way, the lobby would not hold them for long.

She struck a match and leaned close to the engine. The fuel line had split near the intake, the rubber cracked into a dozen tiny mouths. She tore a strip from the hem of her shirt and wrapped it tight, then braced the line with the metal clip from her flashlight.

The front doors boomed.

Mara pulled the starter cord.

The engine roared awake.

Light flashed through the station. Dead bulbs flickered overhead, throwing the lobby into a stuttering rhythm of white and black. The walkers slammed against the glass. One pane burst inward, scattering shards across the floor.

Mara ran.

The broadcasting room stood behind a second door at the end of the hall. She hit the handle, found it locked, and rammed her shoulder into it. Pain shot through the bruised muscles along her ribs, but the door opened.

Inside, consoles crowded the room beneath a layer of dust. A reel-to-reel machine sat beside a microphone, its reels still threaded. The station’s call letters had been painted across the wall in blue: K-R-N-8.

Mara dropped her pack and went straight for the transmitter.

The generator groaned outside.

“Stay on,” she told it.

She flipped switches. One panel sparked. Another lit green. The radio on her hip screamed with static.

Then the woman’s voice came through the room speakers.

“ - if you can hear this, do not approach the eastern - ”

The signal broke.

Mara leaned over the console. “Come on.”

The generator coughed.

Outside, the doors gave way.

Walkers poured into the lobby, their feet dragging through glass. Their moans rolled down the hallway, thick and rising. Mara saw them through the wired window: a man in a torn postal uniform, a woman with half her face blackened, a boy still wearing a school backpack. They pressed toward the broadcasting-room door.

She grabbed the microphone and twisted the frequency dial. The speaker shrieked.

The voice returned, clearer this time.

“ - community at coordinates four-six - ”

Static swallowed the rest.

Mara slapped the side of the console. “Say it again.”

The generator whined.

The broadcasting room door shuddered under the first impact.

She scanned the equipment. A small cassette deck blinked red beneath the console. Beside it lay a handwritten note, the paper yellowed and stained.

REPEATER CYCLE: 17 MINUTES. MANUAL OVERRIDE REQUIRED.

The words tightened something in her chest. This was not an abandoned emergency loop. Someone was still operating the signal.

Another impact struck the door. Dust sifted from the frame.

Mara picked up the note. Beneath the instructions, someone had written a second line in darker ink.

DON’T TRUST THE VOICE.

The door bowed inward.

She shoved the note into her pocket and searched the console. A metal lever sat beneath a plastic cover. She broke the cover with the butt of her knife and pulled the lever down.

The station lights died.

For one breath, the walkers went quiet.

Then the generator caught again with a violent bang.

Every speaker in the room came alive at once.

“ - northbound route is compromised,” the woman said. “Repeat. Northbound route is compromised. Do not use the highway.”

Mara froze.

The voice sounded calm, almost gentle. Too gentle for the world outside.

A new tone pulsed through the speakers. Three notes, exactly like the ones from her radio.

The woman continued. “Survivors seeking shelter may proceed to Briar Glen community. Coordinates follow. Four-six point one-two-eight. Minus one-one-seven point six-four-four. Approach from the west through the quarry road. The gates will open at dusk.”

Mara grabbed a grease pencil from the console and wrote the numbers across her forearm.

The door cracked.

A gray hand reached through.

Mara stepped back and raised her knife, but the fingers withdrew before she could strike. Something heavy slammed into the other side. The door hinges screamed.

The broadcast changed.

The woman’s voice vanished beneath a wash of static. A man spoke instead, his tone low and close, as if he were standing beside the microphone.

“Briar Glen is not safe.”

Mara stared at the speaker.

The man continued, “The voice has been altered. The coordinates are bait. If you are hearing this, leave the station immediately. They are tracking the repeater.”

A sharp click cut him off.

The woman returned, louder now. “Proceed to Briar Glen. Do not answer unauthorized transmissions.”

Mara felt the skin prickle along her arms.

Someone was managing the broadcast. Maybe two someones. One promising shelter. One warning her away. And both knew the station was still alive.

The door burst open.

Mara swung the knife and caught the nearest walker beneath the jaw. It dropped across the threshold, blocking the others for half a second. She seized the fallen body by its jacket and dragged it sideways, then kicked open the narrow maintenance hatch behind the transmitter.

Cold air rushed through the opening.

The crawlspace was barely wide enough for her shoulders. Wires brushed her hair as she forced herself inside. Behind her, hands clawed across the floor. One caught her boot.

Mara kicked hard.

The grip broke. She crawled through darkness while the station filled with the wet, furious noise of the dead. At the far end, a rusted grate gave way under her elbow. She spilled into the weeds behind the building, landing on her injured side.

For several seconds she could not move.

The generator continued to throb inside the station. Through the broken wall, the broadcast carried into the night.

“Approach from the west through the quarry road,” the woman repeated. “The gates will open at dusk.”

Mara rolled onto her back and looked toward the road.

Figures were emerging from the station’s front entrance now, spilling into the weeds. The nearest walker lifted its head toward her.

She crawled behind a concrete drainage pipe and clamped one hand over her mouth. Her ribs burned. Blood warmed the cut across her palm. The walkers wandered past, searching by sound, while the station broadcast looped behind them.

Briar Glen.

A place. A direction. Something more solid than rumors and torn evacuation maps.

She pulled the radio from her belt. The display flickered weakly, but the three tones were still there. Beneath them, hidden under static, came the man’s voice one final time.

“West quarry road. Come alone if you want to live.”

Mara lowered the radio.

In her pocket, the warning note pressed against her thigh. On her arm, the coordinates shone in crooked black numbers. She thought of Liora’s hand slipping from hers in the crush of the evacuation line, of Liora shouting her name as soldiers forced the gates shut, of the promise Mara had made before the crowd swallowed her.

I’ll find you.

The station lights flickered again.

A red indicator glowed in the broadcasting room window, steady as an open eye.

Mara rose into a crouch and tightened the straps of her pack. The broadcast had given her a road, but it had also marked her for whoever was listening.

Behind her, the dead began turning toward the quarry.

She stepped into the weeds, heading west before dusk.

End of chapter one. 7 more chapters and about 16,584 words in the full book.