Surviving the Apocalypse With My Yandere Ex-Girlfriend

Chapter 234: Fear comes in different shapes

The cuffs around my wrists clinked softly every time I took another step.

Not loud.

Just enough to remind me they were there.

Callahan walked half a pace behind me with the muzzle of his rifle resting lazily against the middle of my back. It wasn’t pressed hard enough to hurt. It didn’t need to be. The message had already been delivered the moment they put the cuffs on me.

Keep walking.

I did.

The door behind Miriam shut with a heavy metallic thud, swallowing the conversation we’d just had as though it had never happened.

She moved ahead of us without saying a word.

Not hurried.

Not slow.

Measured.

Every step looked deliberate.

I watched the back of her white coat sway gently with each stride as we emerged into the compound again.

The sky had settled beneath a thick blanket of gray clouds. The kind that threatened snow but hadn’t committed to it yet. A bitter wind rolled across the open yard, carrying with it the smell of damp soil, fresh lumber, wood smoke...

...and blood.

The smell never truly left this place.

It simply blended into everything else.

My eyes drifted instinctively toward the outer walls.

The infected beyond the barricades were still there.

Hundreds of them.

They clawed at reinforced fencing.

Pressed ruined faces between gaps in the steel.

Their snarls rose and fell like waves crashing against a cliff.

Yet nobody inside seemed particularly bothered by it.

Workers continued hauling timber.

Others hammered fresh boards into watchtowers.

Two intelligent infected argued over the angle of a support beam before one of them climbed the structure to adjust it himself.

Nobody looked frightened.

Nobody looked rushed.

It felt...

Wrong.

Not because it was violent.

Because it wasn’t.

A woman carrying a basket full of vegetables stepped aside to let Miriam pass.

She lowered her head respectfully.

"Morning."

Miriam nodded once.

"And to you."

That was it.

No worship.

No chanting.

No kneeling.

Just...

Morning.

I frowned.

A little farther ahead, an elderly man sat outside one of the cabins sharpening gardening tools. His hands trembled from age more than fear. Beside him sat an infected woman whose eyes glowed a muted crimson.

She picked up one of the finished tools.

Inspected the edge.

Smiled.

"You missed a spot."

The old man sighed dramatically.

"I know."

She laughed.

An actual laugh.

Not manic.

Not hysterical.

Just amused.

He rolled his eyes before taking the hoe back.

"I was getting to it."

"I’ve heard that three times."

"So now you’re counting?"

"I’ve got nothing better to do."

She smirked.

He smiled despite himself.

I kept walking.

My stomach tightened.

None of this made any sense.

None of it.

I’d seen intelligent infected before.

Lila.

Callahan.

Jennifer.

Reta.

Every single one of them carried something underneath the surface.

Violence.

Instability.

An impulse forever scratching beneath the skin.

Even when they smiled...

...it never reached their eyes.

But these ones...

They looked...

domesticated.

The thought alone made my skin crawl.

A little girl darted across the pathway chasing after a ragged cloth ball.

She couldn’t have been older than seven.

She nearly ran straight into Miriam before stopping herself.

"Oh."

The little girl blinked.

"Sorry."

Miriam crouched until they were eye level.

"Did you catch it?"

The child turned.

The ball had rolled beneath a wagon.

She nodded sheepishly.

"It got away."

Miriam reached underneath the wagon herself, retrieved the ball, dusted it off against her sleeve and handed it back.

"There."

The girl’s face lit up.

"Thank you."

She ran off without another word.

Miriam stood again as though nothing unusual had happened.

I stared at her.

"You rehearsing this?"

She glanced at me.

"What?"

"The caring leader act."

Her expression didn’t change.

"No."

"I’ve seen people like you before."

"I doubt that."

"You all think you’re saving people."

"And you think you aren’t?"

I let out a humorless laugh.

"I know I’m not."

For the first time since we’d left her office...

Miriam actually looked at me.

Not through me.

At me.

There wasn’t pity in her eyes.

Nor anger.

Only curiosity.

"I believe that."

The answer caught me off guard.

I frowned.

"What?"

"You’ve never convinced yourself you’re a hero."

She looked forward again.

"That’s what makes you different."

Callahan scoffed behind me.

"Don’t feed his ego."

Miriam ignored him.

We continued walking.

My attention drifted toward the perimeter again.

Watchtowers stood every fifty yards.

Guards occupied every one of them.

Some human.

Some infected.

Rifles rested across their laps.

Eyes constantly scanning.

Not outward.

Inward.

I slowed almost imperceptibly.

Every single watchtower...

Faced the compound.

Not the wilderness.

Not the infected outside.

The people inside.

I looked toward the gates.

Massive steel doors reinforced with welded scrap.

Three separate locking mechanisms.

Two machine-gun nests.

Four guards.

All facing inward.

My heartbeat slowed.

"...No."

The word escaped me before I realized I’d spoken aloud.

Miriam kept walking.

"You’ve noticed."

I didn’t answer.

I looked farther down the fence line.

Another gate.

Same thing.

More guards.

Facing inward.

Another.

Same.

My mouth slowly went dry.

Humans weren’t trying to escape.

Neither were the infected.

Nobody was allowed out.

Not one person.

This wasn’t a settlement.

It wasn’t even a prison.

It was something stranger.

Everyone here...

Human and infected alike...

...lived inside the same walls.

I looked at Miriam again.

"What are you keeping in?"

She smiled.

Not because she’d won.

Not because she’d been waiting for the question.

Because she’d hoped I’d ask it.

"The same thing," she said quietly.

"...that you’re trying to keep out."

And for the first time since arriving...

I wasn’t sure she was talking about the infected.

—

I’ll lean into the emotional escalation while keeping it grounded in the rules you’ve established for Miriam’s ideology.

The bell rang.

Once.

Its deep metallic toll rolled across the compound, cutting through the scrape of tools against frozen earth.

Every hammer stopped.

Every conversation died.

Even the wind seemed quieter.

I frowned.

Nobody had to be told what the sound meant.

They already knew.

Workers slowly lowered their equipment.

Intelligent infected straightened.

Even the baseline infected beyond the walls seemed to grow more agitated, their snarls rising into one another until they became a single, awful chorus.

Something was wrong.

Miriam stopped walking.

Not dramatically.

Simply...

Stopped.

She tilted her head slightly, listening.

Around us, dozens of eyes slowly turned toward the eastern side of the compound.

Nobody moved.

Nobody wanted to be the first.

Then—

A scream.

Not fear.

Pain.

Raw.

Animal.

It ripped across the yard.

The silence shattered.

A young infected man stumbled out from between two buildings, crashing shoulder-first into a wooden cart hard enough to flip it onto its side.

Vegetables scattered across the frozen ground.

He hit the dirt.

Didn’t get back up.

Instead—

His entire body convulsed.

Violently.

His spine arched so hard I heard joints crack.

His hands clawed at the frozen earth.

Blood poured from both nostrils in thick streams.

He let out a scream so guttural it barely sounded human anymore.

Panic erupted.

People backed away instinctively.

A mother snatched her daughter into her arms.

Another intelligent infected rushed forward before stopping halfway, uncertainty flashing across his face.

"...Elias?"

The convulsing infected didn’t answer.

His jaw snapped open.

Too far.

His teeth clattered violently as blood began spilling from the corners of his mouth.

One of the prisoners gagged.

Another turned away entirely.

"What the hell..."

Callahan muttered under his breath.

For the first time since I’d met him...

He looked unsettled.

Miriam stepped forward.

Purposefully.

Calmly.

"Kneel him onto his side."

Nobody moved.

She spoke again.

Firm this time.

"Now."

Two infected obeyed immediately.

They dropped beside the convulsing man despite the blood spraying across their clothes.

One held his shoulders.

The other tried keeping his head from striking the ground.

"Elias."

Miriam crouched beside him.

"Elias."

His eyes rolled wildly before finally locking onto hers.

For a second...

Recognition.

Then terror.

"M..."

Blood bubbled through his lips.

"Miri..."

His entire body seized again.

Harder.

His scream echoed against every wall surrounding the compound.

The baseline infected beyond the gates answered instantly.

Hundreds of voices rose together.

The barricades shook.

Wood groaned.

Metal shrieked.

Boom.

Something slammed into the eastern gate.

Everyone flinched.

Boom.

Again.

A support beam splintered.

The workers nearest the gate immediately reached for rifles.

Carl was one of them.

He looked toward the barricade.

Then toward Miriam.

Then back again.

"Please..."

Adira whispered.

"Just shoot them..."

Another impact.

The entire gate lurched inward.

One hinge screamed beneath the pressure.

A baseline infected had climbed halfway up the fencing, biting desperately through steel that refused to give.

Three more climbed over it.

Five.

Ten.

Like ants covering meat.

One finally forced an arm through a widening gap.

Long fingers clawed blindly at the people inside.

A woman screamed.

A guard instinctively raised his rifle.

"Miriam!"

He looked over his shoulder.

"They’re coming through!"

His finger tightened around the trigger.

"Permission to fire!"

"No."

The answer came instantly.

The guard blinked.

"...What?"

"I said no."

"They’ll breach the gate!"

"No lethal force."

Another tremendous impact exploded against the barricade.

CRACK.

One of the central support posts snapped clean in half.

The gate sagged.

The baseline infected shrieked louder.

More hands reached through.

Another guard looked horrified.

"Miriam!"

"We’ll lose the east wall!"

Her expression never changed.

"They’re frightened."

The guard stared.

"...They’re trying to kill us!"

"They’re frightened."

She repeated it.

"They’re still our people."

The words barely left her mouth before the weakened section of fencing finally burst inward.

Steel twisted.

Wood exploded.

A baseline infected hurled itself through the opening.

It landed on all fours.

Immediately another followed.

Then another.

Screaming.

Laughing.

Bleeding.

Pure instinct.

The compound erupted.

Prisoners scattered.

Workers stumbled over one another.

One infected woman threw herself between the baseline infected and a little boy without thinking.

The baseline tackled her into the mud.

It didn’t bite.

It clawed.

Ripped.

Tore chunks from her shoulder while she screamed.

Another baseline infected lunged toward an elderly prisoner.

Carl reacted before anyone else.

His shovel swung instinctively.

The metal edge cracked against the infected’s jaw.

It staggered sideways.

Carl raised the shovel again.

"MOVE!"

The infected launched itself back at him.

Carl’s second swing buried the blade straight through its skull.

The body collapsed instantly.

Silence.

Carl froze.

His breathing became shallow.

He looked down at the corpse.

Then slowly toward Miriam.

He hadn’t just killed an infected.

He’d broken her first commandment.

Around them, the remaining baseline infected were finally subdued—not by bullets, but by dozens of intelligent infected physically overwhelming them, pinning them to the ground despite suffering bites and deep lacerations themselves.

The yard looked like a battlefield.

Blood stained the snowless dirt.

People cried.

Children clung to their parents.

One intelligent infected rocked back and forth, whispering to the baseline attacker he had restrained.

"It’s okay..."

"It’s okay..."

"I’ve got you..."

"You don’t know what you’re doing..."

As though comforting a dying brother.

Miriam slowly stood.

Her coat was stained crimson.

Not once had she raised her voice.

She looked first at the dead baseline infected.

Then at Carl.

Their eyes met across the yard.

Carl expected fury.

Expected punishment.

Expected death.

Instead...

Something infinitely worse crossed Miriam’s face.

Disappointment.

Not in Carl.

In herself.

She looked around the ruined compound.

The broken gate.

The wounded.

The infected still bleeding in the dirt.

Then her eyes settled briefly on Elias, whose convulsions had finally stopped.

He wasn’t moving anymore.

For the first time since Adrian had arrived...

Miriam closed her eyes.

Just for a moment.

And when she opened them again...

There was something there that hadn’t existed before.

Fear.