chapter 3

  The morning came, slow and grey.

  Henri Fontaine hadn't slept. He had sat by the frost-crusted window of the village elder’s house, watching the shadows shift with each hour, his eyes bloodshot and heavy. Every creak of the walls, every gust of wind scratching against the timber made his fingers curl tighter around the musket across his lap. No one else seemed as shaken. Perhaps they were too tired to think. Or perhaps Henri was the only one foolish enough to entertain what he feared might be true.

  When the sun finally peeked over the horizon, the regiment lined up once more, weary but disciplined, boots crunching the snow as Václav and his villagers waved them off. A strange tradition, considering these men had done nothing but take shelter for a single night. Yet the wave still came, as if sending them off to battle. Or to their graves.

  Henri said nothing as they left the village behind, a tight knot twisting in his stomach.

  The wind picked up that morning. Bitter and sharp, it whistled through the trees and chilled even the thickest of coats. Not a full hour into the march, Louis Caillard—the lanky grenadier with the oversized nose—started coughing hard enough to rattle his lungs.

  “Someone get that bastard a scarf,” muttered Sergeant Bréon, who had started wheezing himself. “Half the damn regiment’s gonna drop from cold before a bullet ever hits 'em.”

  Henri allowed himself a short, humorless smile. The banter helped. Kept things normal.

  Until they crested a hill—and everything became *not* normal again.

  The corpses lay in a cluster at the bottom of a frozen slope. Eight French soldiers, uniforms torn, rifles scattered. But it wasn’t the number that stunned them—it was the state of the bodies.

  One had his neck ripped open, collarbone visible like jagged stone through fresh snow. Another had his stomach torn wide, guts frozen mid-spill. Two had faces missing entirely, peeled off like wet paper. What little blood there was had frozen black.

  Pierre Dubois muttered a curse, stepping back. “Wolves don’t do this.”

  Henri knelt beside one of the bodies. “This wasn’t wolves.”

  He looked up. The others were silent, save for young Laurent, whose lip trembled as he whispered prayers under his breath.

  Captain Duroc did not speak. His skin was pale beneath his thick mustache, his bandaged wrist wrapped tighter than ever. He simply motioned with his good hand, and they moved on.

  A few more miles of snow-bitten road. A few more reminders that the world had stopped making sense.

  They passed a carriage, tipped sideways into a ditch, a shattered violin case spilling broken strings into the white. A disemboweled horse frozen mid-rear, eyes still wide. A frozen orchard where blood had painted the trees like fruit in bloom. Lucien, the silent infantryman from Gascony, knelt beside a grave marked only with a boot stuck upright in the snow. No one said a word when he lingered behind for a minute too long.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Then came the smoke.

  Thick, black, and bitter—burning wood, oil, and something more human. They rushed forward through the tree-lined path, breath quickening, muskets ready.

  They arrived at a scene from Hell.

  The village was burning. Not burned burning. Flame devoured rooftops and leapt from thatch to timber. Screams pierced the air, but not from battle. From slaughter.

  Red-eyed men and women—villagers? Soldiers? No one could tell anymore—roamed the streets like rabid dogs. One tore into a man’s throat with bare teeth. Another clawed a woman to death brutally. A group of children were huddled beneath a cart. One of the maniacs crawled under it and dragged a boy out by the ankle.

  A bayonet from someone—Henri didn’t see who—was the first to lunge.

  The regiment charged.

  “FORWARD!”

  But the enemy wasn’t made of flesh and fear. They didn’t flinch. They didn’t scream. Even when shot, even when stabbed—they just kept moving. Caporal Michel Parot bayonetted one straight through the stomach. The man leaned in, bit into his cheek, and ripped it off. Parot shrieked before going down, the others swarming over him.

  Henri fired. Reloaded. Fired again. Everywhere, muskets cracked and bayonets flashed, but it wasn’t enough.

  Géraud was torn in two at the waist. Thomas DeLisle, a baker's son from Lyon, was grabbed by three of them, and his limbs pulled in opposite directions like dough. étienne barely managed to scream before a red-eyed girl—whom would've been beautiful if it wasn't for this—tackled him violently before ripping his trhoat apart.

  “Retreat!” someone bellowed. “To the barn! THE BARN!”

  They fled. They ran like hell. Too many men were lost, but turn back to look wasn't even possible, let alone helping them. It was a run or die.

  The barn was old but sturdy. They shoved their way in, dragging crates and carts to block the wide doors. Inside, it was cold, silent, and suffocating. The smell of hay mixed with blood and sweat.

  Henri sat beside Pierre, who was missing two fingers. He hadn’t even noticed. Across from them, Sergeant Bréon clutched a limp arm. Lucien hadn’t said a word since they closed the doors. Louis was sobbing quietly, whispering names no one recognized.

  Upstairs, a few of the sharper men—Henri among them—had scrambled to the loft for a better view, or just some breathing room. The small window up there showed the village burning still. The screaming had mostly stopped.

  Down below, Captain Duroc sat in a pile of hay, shivering violently.

  Henri watched him. It wasn’t the cold. It wasn’t exhaustion. It was something worse.

  Duroc clutched his head like it was splitting open. He muttered incoherently, whispering slurred curses in French and Latin alike. His breath came in fast, choking gasps. Then—

  He began to thrash.

  His body jerked violently. He slammed his head against the barn wall. Once. Twice. Blood smeared across the planks. His eyes rolled back. Foam gathered at his lips.

  “Captain!” cried Pierre, rushing down. “Someone help me!”

  Marceau and Julien followed him, grabbing Duroc’s limbs, trying to pin him.

  And then he *stopped*.

  Everything went quiet. For half a second, Duroc sat still. Upright. Calm.

  Then he opened his eyes.

  They glowed like dim coals, casting faint red light across the hay.

  Before anyone could move, Duroc lunged forward. His teeth sank into Julien’s throat with a wet snap. Blood sprayed the wall.

  Pierre screamed. Marceau tried to pull him off, but Duroc tossed him aside like a sack of grain. He grabbed Pierre by the jaw, forcing his mouth open—then crushed his skull against the floor with a sickening crunch.

  Henri didn’t think. He turned, kicked out the loft window, and screamed, “GO!”

  He, Lucien, Louis, and Bréon didn’t wait for the others. They scrambled through the hole, leapt down into the snow outside. Lucien landed wrong—hearing his ankle snap—but Bréon dragged him up. Behind them, the barn's backdoor burst open, Duroc’s blood-slicked form charging out as more of the infected poured into the structure behind him.

  Henri ran. Into the woods. Into the dark.

  They did not stop running until the screams faded into wind.

  Until the snow covered their tracks.

  Until the forest swallowed them whole.

  Henri collapsed beside a tree, chest heaving, hands shaking. Lucien groaned nearby, clutching his leg. Bréon knelt down, pale but breathing. Louis just stared into nothing.

  Of the men that entered the village that day, only four remained.

  And for the first time, Henri said it aloud, voice cracking with horror and certainty.

  “They’re not alive.”

  No one disagreed...