The sound that woke me wasn't a scream or a gunshot. It was a pattern.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
A heavy, rhythmic banging on metal. It came from the east, maybe two or three blocks away. It wasn't random. It was deliberate. Three beats, a pause, then three more.
I was on my feet before my eyes were fully open. The stockroom was pitch black. I fumbled for the lantern, clicked it on. The sudden light made me wince.
Jonah was already at the front, peering through a slit in the gate. "What is that?" he whispered, his voice tight.
I joined him. The sky was the color of wet charcoal. Pre-dawn. The street was empty, but the sound was unmistakable. Someone was hitting a steel beam or a dumpster with a sledgehammer.
"It's him," I said. The cold certainty settled in my gut. "Silas. He's starting early."
"He's going to the church without us?"
"No." I watched the empty intersection at the end of our block. "He's calling them."
The banging stopped. For a moment, there was only the heavy silence. Then I heard it. The soft, collective shuffle of many dragging feet. It was a whisper at first, growing into a rustling, scraping chorus.
From the side street to the east, they appeared. Walkers. Not one or two. A stream of them. Ten, twenty, more. They moved with a slow, single-minded purpose, shambling toward the source of the noise. Their heads were up, mouths slack. They looked almost eager.
"He's herding them," Jonah breathed, horror dawning on his face. "Away from the church."
"That's the deal," I said, my voice flat. "He clears a path. He shows us his value. And he shows us what happens if we say no."
We watched as the ragged parade passed the far end of our block, drawn like iron filings to the now-silent magnet. They turned the corner, disappearing from view, following the sound that had already moved further away. Silas was leading them on a walk. A deadly, stupid walk.
"He's insane," Jonah said. "What if they turn on him?"
"He knows what he's doing. He's studied them. He knows sound draws them, and he knows they're slow." I turned from the gate. The inside of the bodega felt suddenly smaller. "He's proving a point. He's not just muscle with an axe. He's a strategist."
The sky lightened from charcoal to a sickly grey. The banging had stopped. The street was empty again, but it felt different. The zombie map of our neighborhood had just been redrawn. Silas had pulled them out of their corners and alleys and marched them somewhere else. He had changed the board.
A soft knock came at the flower shop's boarded door. Once, twice.
I looked at Jonah. He looked at me. Neither of us moved.
The knock came again. Insistent.
"I'll go," I said. I picked up the bat. The spear felt too theatrical now.
"Alex," Jonah started, but I was already at the gate.
I slid it open and stepped out. The morning air was cold and carried the sour smell of the departed herd. Silas stood in front of his door. He looked calm. A little sweaty. In his hand was a long, black pry bar, not the axe.
"Morning," he said, like we were neighbors about to carpool.
"You moved the herd," I said.
"I cleared the route," he corrected. "The direct path to St. Benedict's is now… less occupied. The ones in the church basement are still there. They don't seem to care about noise. But the trip there just got easier."
"It was a risk."
"Everything's a risk. The question is whether you control it." He leaned the pry bar against his leg. "I've made my offer. I've shown you I can deliver. Your move."
I looked past him, down the empty street. He had changed the world before breakfast. Not for the better. Not for the worse. Just changed it. Because he could.
"We'll come," I said. The words felt heavy. "But we do it my way. We scout first. We don't just kick the door in."
He nodded, a quick, businesslike dip of his head. "Smart. You have a plan for the ones in the dark?"
"I have a plan."
"Good. One hour. Travel light. Quiet tools." He picked up his pry bar. "And kid? Tell your friend to leave the shotgun. The bang will seal us in a tomb with them."
He turned and went back inside his shop.
I stood there for a minute, the cold seeping through my jacket. Then I went back to Jonah.
"We're going," I said.
He didn't argue. He just started packing. We took small backpacks. Water, a little food, the basic first aid kit. I took the bat and the spear. Jonah took a hammer and a long screwdriver from Mr. Chen's toolbox. It looked pathetic in his hand.
I broke the shotgun open, took out the two shells, and put them in my pocket. The gun itself we hid under a floorboard behind the counter. A last resort for a last stand.
An hour later, we met Silas at the mouth of our alley. He had his axe slung across his back with a piece of rope. The pry bar was in his hand. He looked at our weapons, his expression unreadable.
"Follow me," he said. "Step where I step. Stop when I stop."
He moved not down the middle of the street, but along the building line, staying in the shadows. We followed. The city was eerily quiet. The usual morning sounds of birds were absent. The only noise was the scuff of our shoes on concrete and the distant, lonely moan of a Walker somewhere blocks away.
Silas knew his route. He avoided open intersections. He used a broken fence to cut through a small parking lot. He paused at every corner, listening, before signaling us forward.
We saw no Walkers. His morning herd call had worked. The path was clear.
St. Benedict's was a small, old stone church with a stubby steeple. The front doors were massive oak, scarred and splintered. They were held shut by a thick bicycle lock looped through the handles. Someone had tried to get in already.
"Not the front," Silas whispered. "Basement access is around back. A bulkhead door."
He led us around the side of the building, through a overgrown memorial garden. Stone angels watched us with blank eyes. The bulkhead door was there, two slanted metal doors set into a concrete foundation. A heavy padlock hung from a hasp.
Silas smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. He handed me the pry bar. "Your show."
I took it. The metal was cold. I wedged the flat end into the gap between the doors, right next to the lock. I looked at Jonah. "Be ready. The sound might draw them up."
He nodded, raising his hammer. It shook in his hand.
Silas unslung his axe. He stood to the side, poised.
I took a breath, braced my foot against the stone foundation, and leaned my weight into the pry bar. The metal groaned. The lock held for a second, then the hasp tore from the rotting wood with a shriek of nails.
The doors flew open, banging against the concrete. Darkness yawned below. A set of stone steps descended into black.
And from the blackness, a low, wet groan echoed up.
Then another.
Then the sound of shuffling feet on stone.
They were coming up.
"Light," I hissed.
Jonah fumbled with a flashlight. The beam stabbed down the stairs, shaking wildly.
I saw a face. A woman in a floral dress, her mouth a dark ruin. She was at the bottom of the steps, looking up. The light hit her dead eyes. She didn't blink. She just opened her mouth wider and let out a rasping hiss.
Then she started climbing.
Behind her, more shapes moved in the gloom.
My Taekwondo training screamed distance, but the stairs were a funnel. They could only come one at a time. That was our advantage.
"Hold the line," Silas said, his voice a gravelly calm. "At the top. Don't let them gain the ground."
The woman in the dress reached the middle of the stairs. Her arms came up.
I dropped the pry bar and gripped the spear two-handed. I planted my back foot, sank my weight, and leveled the point.
She came on, oblivious. I waited. Let her get close. Let her reach for me.
When her rotting fingers were a foot from my chest, I thrust.
Not a wild stab. A focused, forward lunge from the core, driving up with my legs, extending through the arms. The spear was weak pine, but the force was true.
The point took her in the center of the chest. It punched through the dress and sank deep. She staggered back one step, but didn't fall. The spear was stuck. She grabbed the shaft and pulled herself forward, impaling herself further, her dead weight dragging me off balance.
It was the wrong tool. The wood hadn't pierced anything vital. It had just made a hole.
"Let it go!" Silas barked.
I released the spear. The woman fell forward, the shaft sticking out of her, and tumbled onto the stone landing at my feet. She immediately began to claw at my legs.
Silas stepped in. Not with a wild chop. With a short, downward stroke. The axe blade sank into the back of her skull with a sound like a coconut cracking. She went still.
He yanked the axe free. "The head or the spine. Nothing else matters."
The next one was coming. A man in a suit, missing a jacket. I grabbed the bat.
This time, I didn't wait for him to gain the landing. As his head cleared the top step, I swung.
I didn't swing for the fences. I used a short, horizontal strike. A bandae chirugi motion, but with twenty ounces of aluminum. The bat connected with his temple. There was a dull, wet thud. His neck snapped sideways with a crunch. He collapsed backward down the stairs, taking the one behind him down in a tangle of limbs.
For a second, there was quiet from below. Just the rustling of the fallen.
Then the groaning started again. More of them.
Jonah's light beam danced over the pile at the bottom of the stairs. Four, maybe five more. Stumbling to get up.
"We can't hold this," I said, breathing hard. "They'll keep coming. We need to clear the space."
Silas looked at the open bulkhead, then at the church wall. "We need to funnel them better. Out here, into the light." He pointed to the memorial garden. "Lure them out. Take them one by one where we have room."
It was a good plan. It was also insanely dangerous.
"You're the bait," he said to me. "You're fast. Draw them out. I'll take them as they emerge."
I looked at Jonah. His face was white, but he gave a tiny nod.
"Okay," I said. I stepped to the edge of the dark opening. "Hey! Lunch is up here!"
I slapped the bat against the stone wall. Crack. Crack.
The groaning below intensified. The shuffling became urgent.
A hand gripped the top step. Then a head. A teenage boy in a football jersey.
I backed up, into the garden. "That's it. Come on."
He pulled himself up and shambled toward me, arms outstretched.
As he cleared the doorway, Silas moved. He came from the side, his axe a blur. It took the boy in the neck, nearly severing the head. The body dropped.
The next one was already coming out. An older man. Silas was resetting his stance.
"Jonah!" I yelled.
Jonah didn't think. He just moved. He lunged forward with his screwdriver, not at the body, but at the head as it turned toward him. He drove the point into its ear. The man jerked and fell sideways, twitching.
Jonah stared at his hand, at the screwdriver buried in the thing's skull. He made a small, choked sound.
"Good," Silas grunted. "Now get it back. The tool is more important than the shock."
Two more emerged together. Silas took one. I stepped in to take the other with the bat. A quick, downward strike on the crown. It crumpled.
Silence.
We stood in the garden, panting, surrounded by the dead. The basement below was quiet.
Jonah was shaking. He wiped his screwdriver on the grass, over and over.
Silas walked to the bulkhead and listened. He looked back at us. "That's it. The nest is clear."
He took a flashlight from his pocket and descended the stairs. After a moment, I followed. The basement was a small, damp space. The water tank sat in the corner, big and green and silent. A pipe ran from it to the church's plumbing. A hand pump was attached to the outlet.
Silas walked to the tank and tapped it with his axe. It echoed, full and deep.
"Gold," he whispered.
I looked around. In the far corner, behind some old furniture, was a small door. A storage closet. It was slightly ajar.
A foul smell drifted from it.
I raised my bat. "We missed one."
Silas turned, his axe coming up. "Where?"
I pointed with the bat. The closet door creaked open another inch.
From the darkness within, a low, liquid growl rumbled out. It didn't sound like the others. It sounded… wetter. Hungrier.
And then two eyes, gleaming with a faint, sickly reflection, blinked open in the dark.