Night Shift at the End

Somewhere nearby, infected tissue pulsed through concrete with the slow confidence of roots. "Back line tight," Pike said. His rifle was held together with tape, prayer, and maintenance habits from a country that no longer paid him. "If it screams, nobody runs until I say run." "If it screams," Mara answered, checking bandages in a pack gone stiff with old blood, "half of them will run before they know they moved." Eli flexed his hands. Under his skin, black plates shifted. "Then I make sure it screams at me first." The infected came in the class the new world required for that lesson. Sometimes it was a runner, all speed and exposed tendon. Sometimes a hunter with a split face and patient eyes.