Chapter 14 (Joshua’s POV)

  I tried to be quiet. Really, I did. But with every step I took, the rubble beneath my boots seemed determined to betray me—each loose chunk of concrete or twisted scrap of metal making a jarring clang in the eerie silence. The adrenaline thrumming in my veins only worsened my clumsiness, my senses stretched to their limits, expecting a roamer or worse around every corner.

  I’d been inching along a derelict street where half the structures had collapsed inward, forming steep mounds of broken masonry on either side. The overcast sky gave the entire block a dull, gray cast, and the wind whistled through the jagged remains of high-rise facades. I pressed myself against a leaning slab of concrete, trying to get my bearings, when my boot crunched through a piece of rebar that snapped under my weight with a violent crack.

  The sound ricocheted off the ruined walls, echoing unnaturally loud in the dead hush. My heart jumped into my throat, and I froze, breath catching. Damn it… I clenched my jaw, war hammer at the ready, scanning the shadows for any sign of motion. No immediate shriek, no moan. Perhaps I’d escaped detection.

  But then I heard it: the shuffle of decaying feet, a soft scraping against the pavement. First from somewhere behind a chunk of collapsed building on my left. Another scuttling from deeper in the street ahead, out of sight. A low, guttural moan drifted in from my right. Oh, God. My pulse soared. I cursed under my breath—so much for stealth.

  A frantic glance around showed me no easy escape route. The path back was blocked by a precarious mound of debris, and I didn’t trust climbing it in my current state. The only option: stand my ground or try to dash past them. My war hammer felt clumsy in my sweaty grip, but it was better than going unarmed.

  The first roamer shambled into view on my left—a figure with flayed skin hanging in greasy ribbons from its limbs, hollow eyes clouded with that undead haze. Bloodless lips peeled back over blackened teeth in a silent snarl. It lurched forward, forcing one of its knees to bend at an unnatural angle. Each step made a wet slap on the broken pavement. I forced myself not to recoil, even as my stomach churned.

  A second roamer rounded the broken corner to my right, arms half-missing, trailing a string of intestines from its open belly. I stifled a gasp, trying not to gag at the sight of old gore crusted over its gray-green flesh. Its milky eyes locked onto me, mouth working in a slow chew as if anticipating fresh meat. My breathing turned shallow, heart thrumming. Two… Where are the others?

  I got my answer soon enough. A third roamer appeared from behind a pile of twisted metal to my front, and a fourth, behind the first one on my left, but lagging several steps, half crawling on a shattered forearm. All of them dragged themselves toward me, moaning in that empty, hungry way. I fought the surge of panic threatening to freeze my limbs. You have the war hammer. Swing for the head.

  The nearest roamer (the one with the half-flayed limbs) lunged first, letting out a ragged hiss. I stumbled backward, foot colliding with rubble, nearly losing my balance. Summoning every ounce of nerve, I raised the war hammer overhead and brought it down in a desperate arc. The heavy metal head crunched into the roamer’s upper spine with a sickening impact. Bone splintered, a gout of thick, blackish fluid spurting from the crater. The smell was ungodly, a wave of putrescence that forced bile into my throat. The roamer collapsed, limbs twitching.

  No time to absorb the shock. The second roamer—intestines trailing—crashed into me from the right. I almost dropped the hammer in my scramble, but I thrust it forward like a shield, the handle connecting with its torso. I felt the wet give of rotten flesh as it slid along the hammer’s shaft, jaws snapping inches from my face. I let out a choked yell, twisting my body to shove it away. It staggered, arms flailing for purchase. A wave of reek and decay slammed my senses, eyes watering from the rancid stench.

  Behind it, the third roamer—lurking by a chunk of metal—chose that moment to lurch toward me. It had a deep wound across its throat, the trachea partially exposed. My stomach lurched but I swung the hammer sideways, connecting with its ribcage. The momentum knocked it off-balance, sending it skidding on the concrete, but not before a rancid hand raked across my jacket, nails scraping fabric. My heart thundered in my ears. I can’t let them corner me.

  The second roamer recovered faster than I liked, growling with mindless hunger. It lunged again, mouth yawning wide, blackened teeth clacking. I ducked under its gnashing jaws, ignoring the slime that spattered my arm, and smashed the hammer’s spiked back end into the roamer’s temple. The skull caved inward with a wet, crunching sound that made me recoil in horror. Clotted bits spattered my boots. The creature collapsed, mouth still working uselessly. I forced the revulsion aside, stepping back to keep an eye on the others.

  The third roamer, the one I’d knocked aside, was already rising, gurgling through that torn throat. A nauseating clump of something dangled from its neck. The fourth roamer dragged itself closer, half-crawling on that shattered forearm, a single leg behind it twisted at an impossible angle. Its hollow moan grated like a broken record. My entire body trembled, arms heavy from the repeated swings, but I couldn’t let up. Two down, two to go.

  I gripped the hammer with both hands, sweat pouring down my temples, adrenaline scorching my muscles. The third one lunged again, swiping at my chest with bony fingers. I swung the hammer in a violent uppercut, smashing the underside of its jaw. Splinters of teeth and jawbone flew out in a grisly arc, and the roamer’s head snapped back, the neck wound tearing further. With a ragged snarl, it collapsed backward, thrashing in spasms. A rush of sticky, black fluid splattered the ground, and I choked back a sob of disgust.

  No pause—my attention snapped to the fourth roamer crawling on the ground. It reached out with its good arm, clawing at the rubble, dragging itself on a torn belly, leaving a smear of rotted innards in its wake. My brain screamed to just run, but I forced myself to finish the job. Letting it close the distance was a risk; I hovered out of its reach, chest heaving. I have to kill it.

  The thing scrabbled closer, raising that single working arm to grasp my ankle. Its mouth parted, revealing a half-intact tongue coated in slimy gore. I brought the hammer down as hard as I could on the back of its skull. The blow splattered old congealed matter across the pavement in a vile eruption. The roamer’s limbs quivered, then fell slack.

  A wave of nausea rolled through me, and I staggered back, hammer trembling in my grip. The stench of raw putrefaction clung to the air, a suffocating perfume of bodily fluids and rot. I doubled over, breath coming in ragged bursts, forcing myself not to vomit. Jesus… you survived, but at what cost?

  Around me, four gruesome corpses lay in varying states of destruction, heads caved in or jaws broken, blackish blood spreading in slick pools. My legs felt weak, adrenaline draining fast. The hush of the city reasserted itself, wind whistling dispassionately through the battered alley. Flies, drawn by the fresh gore, already buzzed in a swirling cloud, settling on gaping wounds with a lazy, mindless greed. I staggered amid the aftermath, heart still pounding but with adrenaline rapidly slipping away. Around me lay four broken remains of what had been the undead—limbs twisted, skulls caved, blackish blood pooling in slick patches on the concrete. The thick stench of decay and spilled gore curled heavily in the air, aided by the breeze funneling through the desolate alley. Flies swarmed in clumsy spirals, drawn by the fresh carnage, their droning hum an ominous requiem for the dead things at my feet.

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  A bitter knot of dread twisted in my gut. I remembered Anna’s words: You harvest the pearls from the back of their necks if you want to grow stronger. Or something along those lines. Even though revulsion gripped me, some logic insisted I should do it. but necessity, once again, left me no choice.

  Steeling myself, I forced a shaking breath and moved toward the nearest corpse. Its head had been hammered almost flat, skull crunched into a shallow bowl of bone shards and coagulated fluids. I crouched carefully, ignoring the wave of rancid odor that hit like a physical blow. The roamer’s neck was half-severed, loose strips of sinew connecting battered flesh. Already, the flies had settled across the open tissue, their metallic bodies wriggling greedily. I swallowed a gag.

  Unsheathing a small knife from my belt—one I’d bought in hopes of situations like this—I set the hammer aside and braced my free hand against the roamer’s battered torso. The skin felt strangely slick and rubbery, the reek of infection turning my stomach anew. The gore squelched under my fingers, sending a jolt of raw disgust through me. But I needed both steadiness and a well-placed cut.

  One trembling breath. Then, with ginger precision, I slid the knife along the roamer’s damp neck, pushing aside the peeled, clotted layers of gray-blue flesh. My lips curled at the wet squelch, thick fluid oozing from beneath the blade. I tried to breathe through my mouth, but the odor was everywhere—fetid, sweetly putrid, like rotting meat in a clogged drain.

  Focus… The blade bit deeper, parting tough sinew. Maggots or tiny white larvae wriggled in the ragged meat, and flies, disturbed by my intrusion, buzzed up in a frenzied cloud. My stomach clenched hard, threatening to vomit, but I swallowed the bile.

  At last, my knife’s tip brushed something firm and round—like a marble embedded in the rotting flesh. Heart pounding, I gently scooped around it, feeling the solid edges slick with congealed matter. With a quietly horrified grunt, I pried it free. It popped loose in a gush of blackish muck, sliding into my palm. A pungent odor spiked, and my vision momentarily blurred with tears.

  One down, three to go. As vile as it was, Anna had insisted these pearls could be vital. So I forced the next step: I wiped the pearl on a rag, scrubbing the filth away until the orb’s faint luminescence showed. Then I carefully dropped it into a small pocket in my pack, ignoring the violent lurch of my stomach.

  Time for the next corpse. My breath still came in frantic spurts, my heart refusing to slow. Each body offered a fresh wave of disgust, each neck a fresh coil of glistening tendons and half-rotten skin. The second roamer I’d killed had its jaw almost detached, the tongue dangling in a stiff black clump. Flies had already settled around the parted lips, dancing over the slime. Kneeling beside it, I parted layers of battered flesh near the base of the neck with the knife. The stench came in a suffocating wave, chunky fluids spilling over my gloved fingers. Don’t think about it, Joshua. Just do it.

  The knife snagged on a fragment of vertebra, forcing me to twist it free with a sickening scrape. Eventually, the blade again found the small, marble-like shape—almost locked among the bone shards. I scooped it out, feeling the warm, jellylike matter cling to my palm. A harsh exhale left my lips, half-choked with disgust. Another pearl, same luminescent sheen caked in black muck. The act of wiping it off felt worse than the first time, as if my mind couldn’t adapt to the repeated violation. Gagging, I stuffed it in my pack, so close to retching that sweat poured down my temple.

  The third and fourth bodies followed much the same, though the swirling flies thickened, driven mad by the fresh gore. My every motion disturbed them, sending them spinning in a buzzing cloud. Bits of flesh and scum-laden fluids jettisoned under the blade, painting the ground in fresh spurts of rotten color. The high, droning hum layered with the sloppy sounds of tissue being carved. The entire alley stank of entrails, of days-old decomposition, of the sewage tang that these roamers apparently carried in their ruined bodies.

  By the time I’d extracted the last pearl, I was shaking violently from revulsion and the remnants of adrenaline. I couldn’t feel my arms—numb from tension—and my knees threatened to buckle. In total, I had Thirteen glistening orbs, each one stashed away with the black residue wiped off as best I could. The residue still clung to my gloves, reeking with each exhale. Flies feasted on the open corpses, descending in such numbers that the remains seemed to writhe under their gluttony.

  Straightening up, I took an unsteady step back from the carnage. My pulse hammered in my ears, my throat tight. My entire body felt filthy, morally and physically. The city’s wind, reeking of concrete dust and rotting flesh, scraped at my face. Another wave of gag reflex tried to surface, but I forced it down, chest heaving with shallow, frantic breaths.

  Finally, I grabbed my war hammer off the ground, the handle tacky with dried gore, and forced my feet to move away from the mounds of the dismembered undead. The memory of fleshy squelches, of prying something warm from the necrotic cavity, felt like it was etched onto the inside of my skull.

  Blinking sweat out of my eyes, I limped toward the next stretch of the alley, trying to bury the ordeal in the pit of my conscience. My glove reeked of rancid fluids, and my arms shook from the combined horror and fatigue. But I’d done it—claimed four pearls from the wretched undead by myself without Anna’s help or rather her heckling.

  I coughed, spitting to clear the taste of iron from my mouth, blinking tears from my eyes. Keep it together, Joshua. My war hammer dripped rancid fluid, and I forced myself to wipe it on a patch of damp grass poking through the concrete. Gotta move. The commotion might have drawn more roamers—or something worse. Anna… I’m coming, if you’re still out there.

  With shaking hands, I retightened my backpack’s straps, swallowing the lump in my throat. I cast one last glance at the ghastly scene—four fresh kills, each more gruesome than the last. An unsteady surge of pride and horror mingled in my chest. Pride at having survived, horror at the raw brutality. This place leaves no other option.

  Steeling myself, I turned back to the direction I’d intended—northeast—and forced my battered body onward, leaving the carnage behind. The city’s wind howled around me, a lonely dirge for the undead that would never rest, and for me—a fool with a hammer trudging deeper into a realm that devoured hope like raw meat.