The sky over São Paulo thickened as the night began to unravel.
The heat of the asphalt and concrete still lingered, maintaining the high temperature. The odor of decaying corpses was very faint and barely perceptible inside the barricade, but fully noticeable the moment you stepped out of it.
They had managed to clear the immediate surroundings, avoiding the miasma, but hundreds of bodies still remained in the other blocks of the neighborhood, further away.
To the northeast, a huge pile of fire three kilometers away signaled someone burning their corpses there. Gladly, the wind was flowing in that direction, taking the burning smell and smoke away from the small camp.
The survivors ate in shifts. It wasn't a real meal but an assortment of crackers and some canned beans, plus lukewarm water.
"Take small sips, eat slowly. Your stomach is empty. If you eat too quickly, you'll throw it back up."
Julia walked between them, giving instructions and checking wounds.
Noara was on the back of the bar, sitting half-asleep.
Lu was in an advantage position up on the barricade, watching the shadows that moved in the dark. Her hands clutched the same makeshift spear, just a scavenged pole reinforced with tape, with a kitchen knife lashed at the top.
Clara was with Davi and Marcos, also perched atop the barricade.
"The easiest path for any mutated beast bigger than a poodle would be to jump those debris there and approach through here."
Clara pointed, tracing a path in the air.
"I see, so I need to reinforce the barricade in that position there, as any push from a bigger monster will breach it if it's left as-is."
Marcos was using his newly acquired skills to detect the fracture points and reinforce them.
Davi had been following them, without saying a word, for some time now. But this time, he spoke.
"Marcos, Clara. I think that I could put some traps in that path. Though I'm not really a hands-on person, I would need help crafting the traps themselves. But the path… I remember it. It's very similar to a level I designed the other day for a Tower-Defense game."
He produced a small notebook and a pen from his backpack, opening it with practiced fingers, then finding a page with some diagrams.
"See? The pressure comes through there, like you just pointed out. If we create choke points, we can set up killing zones, making our lives easier."
He leafed through the notebook, finding a clear page, then began to draw the area around the barricade, with all the piles of debris that they had excavated during the body retrieval of the day.
"Look, Clara. Do you see the paths here?"
Clara looked at the area around them, then at Davi's drawings.
"Your map-drawing skills are incredible, Davi. Very precise. Yes, this is the optimal path for them, around this pile here."
"I can fortify that pile to make it so the only option is to go around and not over it."
"Oh! We have a lot of oil and grease from the restaurant, don't we? If we set up a bonfire atop the pile, with one of those restaurant pots filled with oil and grease heating up, and a strong rope that won't burn, the moment something big passes, we pull, and schwah! Boiled monster!"
He passed to the next page and began drawing several diagrams, making calculations. Torque, strength, material resistance, distance…
Clara and Marcos just watched him, amazed.
When suddenly, he stopped writing, freezing mid-motion.
"Davi? What happened?"
"A class! I awakened a class! Tower Defender! Now I can _craft_ those traps myself! Come, Marcos, let's make this into a killing field!"
The other two took the better part of a minute to find a response to what he just said.
"A class? Like that? Tower Defender? How did you-? No, that's not the right question at the moment. What exactly are you able to do now?"
"It's a C-tier, Clara. I can mark areas as Killing Zones, in which traps become more effective and enemies experience some sort of… 'route bias,' it says here. Like, they feel compelled to follow a lane that I can define when marking the area."
Davi's eyes were almost bulging out of their sockets from sheer excitement.
"I can also craft traps from scrap and socket traps in the environment so they don't fall or rip loose before activating."
Clara and Marcos looked at each other, with eyebrows raised.
"That's exactly what we needed now."
Noara's voice rang right below them. She had been shaken up from her almost-sleeping state by the emotional commotion.
"There's no time to lose, you three. Get into it. Those shadows won't wait for the traps to be ready. Clara, you tell the path that is easier for the monsters to follow, Davi sets the traps and marks the zone and lane, and Marcos reinforces the surrounding area. Go!"
Noara turned to Lu.
"Lu! Keep them safe! Send them back inside if any threats approach!"
"Hai! There are some monsters looking at us from the shadows, but they aren't as formidable as the pitbull from yesterday, even though they are also mutated dogs."
"Noara…"
She turned to the source of the voice and saw Nando there.
"I know that I messed up yesterday, and I don't think that you did anything wrong with the punishment. But right now… I can help. Against those things outside. I _am_ a security guard, after all."
Noara stared at him. Not at his face, but at his emotions.
And they were consistent with his words. No resentment, no misdirection, just determination and desire to protect.
"Alright. Julia, give him one of the emergency axes we found today. Nando, no heroics, okay? We need everyone alive when dawn breaks, and that includes yourself. You work under Lu."
"Copy that!"
He took the axe and quickly went up the barricade to where Lu was.
"Do you think that they will really attack, Noara?"
"Yes, Julia. But Lu noticed something. Those are weaker. If my line of thought is right, the stronger monsters went to the bodies in the other quarters. The ones here are those who weren't strong enough to guarantee their food there. And now we're food, in their eyes."
"So they are more than hungry… they are desperate, and with their pride broken."
"Exactly. That makes them more dangerous but also more prone to error. This is why I think that Davi's tower defense tactics will be perfect. I mean, I already thought that, but now that he awakened a class…"
***
The moon was a round, white ball in the dark of night when the shadows decided to come closer.
Mutated dogs, most of them street dogs, though some were originally living inside houses and managed to break free, still carrying their collars. They had organized in packs, ready for the hunt.
"They are coming!"
Lu's alert was just the confirmation of what everyone was already expecting and prepared for.
"First wave defenders, in position now! Davi!"
"I'm on it, Noara!"
Noara was on the second floor of the bar, looking through the space where once there was a window, which had been taken off its hinges by Marcos.
That way, she could see the battlefield and issue commands while also being able to use her skill to help with any point of the defense without having to move.
The first pack rushed forward, howling.