I watched silently as the monster's eyes shimmered, causing me to flinch. The laser beam I expected didn't follow, but its head shone and tendrils hovered in the air.
"What...?"
The next moment, I realised what it did.
The zombies around it — at least fifty in sight, more beyond the fog — jerked violently once. Then their heads snapped toward me.
All of them.
Not just running.
Charging.
But not like animals this time. Like men. Like wounded, mad soldiers.
They didn't groan. They hissed.
Some picked up broken bricks.
Others bent to grab snapped chair legs. Stones. Pipes.
One even pulled the cracked arm off a street mannequin and held it like a club.
Not random.
Not clumsy.
I took one step back and narrowed my eyes.
"Shit."
They were moving like the dead had memory — half-forgotten echoes of hunting, of teamwork, of violence. Their arms swung wide, then straightened. Like they were imitating something they didn't fully remember.
