Chapter 2601: Story 2602: The Voice Beneath the Mountain

The zombie reached the ridge before Kael raised his shield.

Its fingers clawed at the stones. Kael stepped forward and drove his sword through its skull. The corpse collapsed, but another immediately replaced it.

Then another.

And another.

“They’re climbing!” Mara shouted.

She fired her crossbow. A bolt struck a zombie in the throat, sending it tumbling down the slope. Ethan opened fire beside her, each rifle shot echoing between the mountains.

Kael became a wall between the living and the dead.

His shield smashed jaws. His sword cut through rotting arms. Every time a corpse fell, three more appeared behind it.

“Kael!” Adrian shouted. “We have to move!”

Kael glanced toward the northern trail.

The old fortress stood beyond the mountains, but the path leading there was already filling with undead.

“We won’t make it,” Ethan said.

Adrian pointed toward a ruined watchtower.

“There’s another route. Inside that tower is an underground passage.”

Mara looked at the collapsing structure.

“That tower is surrounded.”

Kael wiped blood from his sword.

“Then we go through them.”

He charged.

Mara and Ethan followed.

They fought down the ridge toward the watchtower while Adrian stayed between them, clutching his medical bag.

The zombies moved unnaturally fast.

One leaped from a rock and grabbed Mara’s shoulder.

She screamed and fell.

Kael turned instantly.

His shield struck the creature with enough force to crush its chest. Mara rolled away and fired her crossbow into its eye.

“Thanks,” she gasped.

“Save it,” Kael replied. “Run.”

They reached the tower.

Its wooden door had been destroyed long ago. Inside, darkness swallowed the fading sunlight.

Adrian dropped to his knees beside a stone floor.

“Help me move this.”

Ethan and Kael pushed aside broken timber and revealed an iron hatch.

A strange symbol had been carved into its surface.

Kael recognized it.

The same symbol was burned into the monstrous creature’s shoulder.

“What does it mean?” Mara asked.

Adrian stared at the marking.

“It means this outbreak wasn’t an accident.”

A terrible roar shook the tower.

Dust fell from the ceiling.

The First Infected had reached the ridge.

Adrian hurriedly unlocked the hatch.

Before it opened, Kael looked outside.

The creature stood among the zombies, watching him.

It raised one clawed hand.

Every undead creature stopped.

Then the monster pointed directly at Kael.

Adrian froze.

“It knows you.”

Kael felt cold spread through his body.

“I’ve never seen it before.”

Adrian shook his head.

“No. But maybe it has seen you.”

The hatch opened.

A narrow staircase descended into darkness.

Ethan entered first, rifle ready. Mara followed. Adrian disappeared after her.

Kael remained at the entrance for one final moment.

The creature smiled again.

Then it spoke.

“Kael.”

The warrior froze.

The dead began screaming below.

Kael slammed the hatch shut and descended into darkness.

Above him, something enormous struck the iron door.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Kael looked at his companions.

“Keep moving forward.”

Nobody asked why.

Because they had all heard the monster speak his name.