CHAPTER 62: TAKING DOWN THE FIRE SPITTER!

"We have to take down whatever’s firing these things," I said.

"T...take it down?" Rachel repeated. The shock in her tone was understandable—she’d seen what those fireballs could do, watched them melt through defenses like they were made of paper. The idea of actively hunting whatever was responsible seemed like madness.

I turned to face her fully. "Yeah, otherwise it’s never going to stop. It’ll keep firing tomorrow, then the day after that, endlessly until this entire place is nothing but ashes and memories." I gestured at the molten hole in our southern barrier, still glowing cherry-red in the darkness. "Look around, Rachel. We can’t build defenses fast enough to keep up with that kind of firepower."

Brad, who’d been listening from his position near the weapons cache, suddenly exploded into mocking laughter. "And how the hell do you plan to take that thing down, huh?" He stalked closer, his rifle slung carelessly over his shoulder, his face twisted with derision. "Whatever weapon these bastards are using is clearly well-protected! And in case you forgot, genius, there are a lot of infected between us and that weapon!" He snorted like he’d just delivered the punchline to a particularly clever joke.

I felt my temper flare but kept my voice level. "Then what exactly are you planning to do?" I asked, turning to glare directly into his eyes. "Just wait here and watch as everyone and everything around you turns to ash? Maybe hope it gets bored and goes away?"

Brad’s face flushed red, and for a moment I thought he might actually swing at me. His hands clenched into fists, and I could see the vein in his forehead throbbing with barely controlled anger. But when it came down to it, he had no answer. He could criticize my plan all he wanted, but he couldn’t offer a better alternative.

The silence stretched between us until Martin’s voice cut through the tension. "Do you truly mean it, Ryan?" He asked.

"Yeah," I nodded. "But you don’t have to follow me. I’ll scout ahead, get a look at whatever we’re dealing with, and see if there’s something I can do about it."

The truth was, I didn’t want anyone to follow me. This would be a suicide mission for any of these ordinary people, no matter how brave or well-intentioned they might be. But I wasn’t ordinary—not anymore. The virus that had changed me.

Margaret stepped forward after. "Do you even know where they are? Whoever’s doing this could be positioned anywhere in the surrounding area."

"I’ll figure it out," I said, not wanting to explain that I could already sense the general direction the attacks were coming from. My enhanced senses were picking up traces—heat signatures in the distance, the lingering scent of whatever propellant was being used, even the faint sound of something breathing that wasn’t quite human.

"You’ll figure it out?" Brad scoffed. "This guy has really lost it. He’s going to get himself killed chasing shadows in the dark."

"I’m fast enough to outrun most infected, and I know how to stay quiet. It’s worth the risk." I started moving toward the building entrance, planning to grab my pack and a few supplies. "Keep the defenses up while I’m gone. If I’m not back by dawn, assume I didn’t make it and start planning your evacuation routes already."

Martin and Margaret looked like they wanted to argue, to try to talk me out of what seemed like an obvious suicide mission. But another group of infected was shambling toward the compromised perimeter, and they had to turn their attention back to the immediate threat. The crack of gunfire filled the air again as the defenders engaged the new wave.

"I’m coming with you."

Rachel said. I turned to see her slinging her pack over her shoulder.

"Rachel..." I started, but she cut me off before I could build up any momentum.

"No. You don’t have any say in this matter." Her tone brooked no argument,

I tried a different approach, appealing to her protective instincts. "If something happens to you, Rebecca will be alone."

Rachel’s expression softened for just a moment, but then her jaw set again. "Nothing’s going to happen to me because I’m strong, and you’ll be there to watch my back, right?" She gave me a smile.

Now you’re putting a lot of pressure on me, I thought, but I knew there was no point in arguing further.

"Stay close and follow my lead," I said, accepting the inevitable. "We move fast, we stay quiet, and we don’t engage anything unless we have to."

We headed toward the hole that the fireball had melted in the main entrance.

"Ryan!"

Martin’s voice called out behind us as we reached the opening. I turned to see him jogging toward us, something dark and metallic in his hands.

He tossed it to me, and I caught it reflexively. It was a shotgun.

The wooden stock was scarred and worn, but the barrel was clean and the action felt solid when I tested it.

"Only five shells left, but it’s better than nothing, right?" Martin called out.

"Thanks, Martin. I won’t waste them," I said gratefully.

"Be careful out there, and don’t be reckless!" He shouted as another wave of gunfire erupted behind him. "Just scout the situation and take action only if you’re certain you can win!"

I nodded.

Rachel and I slipped through the molten gap in the defenses and into the hostile darkness beyond.

We moved quickly but carefully, using our enhanced speed and stamina to maintain a pace that would have been impossible for normal humans.

"Do you think we’re going to encounter some kind of monster?" Rachel asked as we jogged through the abandoned streets.

I considered the question as we navigated around an overturned bus. "I hope not, but I have a hard time believing that whatever’s firing these balls of fire is just some ordinary weapon."

"You’re right," Rachel agreed. "Normal weapons don’t work like that. And the way those infected were coordinated earlier... something’s controlling them."

We continued running through the urban wasteland, and it wasn’t difficult to follow the trail. The fireballs had left a path of destruction that was impossible to miss—melted asphalt, twisted metal, and scorch marks that glowed faintly in the darkness. Whatever was creating these projectiles was operating at temperatures that shouldn’t have been possible with conventional weapons.

After about ten minutes of following the destruction, I began to smell something that made my enhanced senses recoil.

I held up a hand, signaling Rachel to stop. We’d reached the edge of what had once been a strip mall, centered around a large pharmacy that somehow remained mostly intact despite the apocalypse. But it wasn’t the building that captured my attention.

It was what was in the parking lot in front of it.

About a dozen infected stood in perfect formation, arranged in neat rows like soldiers at attention. But these weren’t the shambling, mindless creatures we’d grown accustomed to fighting. They stood perfectly still, their heads all turned in the same direction, as if they were waiting for orders from some unseen commander.

And behind them, squatting in the center of the parking lot like some obscene toad, was the source of our problems.

"What... what is that thing?" Rachel whispered.

The creature was roughly the size and shape of a large pumpkin, but its surface was a deep, arterial red that seemed to pulse with its own internal light. As we watched, it began to swell slowly, its flesh expanding like a balloon being inflated. Through what might have been a mouth—or perhaps just an opening in its mass—I could see fire gathering, building in intensity until the creature glowed like a coal in a forge.

When it reached maximum size, easily doubling its original dimensions, it contracted violently and expelled a ball of fire that screamed through the air toward the Municipal office we’d just left. The creature deflated back to its smaller size and immediately began the process again, gathering energy for another devastating attack.

I felt my blood turn cold as understanding washed over me. This wasn’t a weapon at all—it was alive. Some kind of creature that had evolved or been created specifically to launch these attacks. And if it was alive, that meant it could potentially be killed.

"What do we do, Ryan?" Rachel asked.

"We kill that thing."

I looked at the grotesque creature for several more seconds.

My hands found the shotgun, and I pulled it forward, checking the action one more time. The metal was cold against my palms.

"We approach from behind," I whispered to Rachel, formulating the plan as I spoke. "That thing seems focused on the municipal office—it’s not scanning for threats from other directions. If we can get around to its blind spot and take it out before it can react..."

"What about the infected?" Rachel asked.

"We avoid them if possible, go through them if necessary." I adjusted the axe on my belt, making sure it was secure but accessible. "The key is speed and surprise. Once we commit to this, there’s no backing down."

We began our approach slowly.

The infected guards remained statue-still as we crept along the edge of the parking lot, using abandoned cars and debris for cover.

We’d made it perhaps halfway around the perimeter when everything went wrong.

As if responding to some signal I couldn’t perceive, every infected head snapped toward us in perfect unison. The movement was so sudden and synchronized that it sent a chill ran down my spine.

They began moving toward us immediately, not with the typical shambling gait of normal infected, but with purposeful, coordinated strides that ate up ground at an alarming rate.

"Rachel! Get to the pharmacy!" I shouted, abandoning any pretense of stealth.

She didn’t hesitate, sprinting toward the building. I could hear glass breaking as she forced her way through the front door, clearing a path for our retreat.

But I wasn’t retreating yet. The creature had noticed the commotion and was turning its attention toward us, its next fireball charging in what I realized was its mouth. This was my one chance.

I ran straight toward the monster.

The thing was even more horrifying up close. Its surface wasn’t smooth like I’d thought, but covered in pulsing veins and nodules that seemed to have their own independent movement. The red coloration was deeper and more organic than any paint or coating.

Just a little bit closer, I told myself, fighting every instinct that screamed at me to run. The infected were closing in from behind, but they were still several seconds away. The creature was swelling to maximum size, fire gathering in its maw with increasing intensity.

Then it turned to face me directly, and I found myself staring into an orifice that was part mouth, part furnace, part gateway to hell itself. The heat radiating from it was intense enough to singe the hair on my face, and I could see the fireball forming in its depths—a concentrated ball of death aimed directly at my center mass.

If I took a direct hit from that thing, there wouldn’t be enough left of me to identify.

I immediately used the Time Freeze.

Ten seconds.

I closed the remaining distance to the creature in three quick strides, circled around to its back, and pressed the shotgun’s muzzle against what I hoped was its brain.

Then I pulled the trigger.

BANG!

The shotgun’s roar was deafening in the frozen silence, and the recoil sent shockwaves up my arms. But I was already moving, throwing myself backward as time resumed and the consequences of my action caught up with reality.

The explosion was beyond what I’d expected.

The creature didn’t just die—it detonated. The fireball that had been building in its throat erupted outward in all directions simultaneously, turning the thing into a living bomb. The concussion wave hit me like a physical wall, lifting me off my feet and hurling me backward across the parking lot.

I hit the ground hard, rolling and tumbling across broken asphalt and debris. Pain exploded through my ribs and shoulder as I finally came to rest against the twisted frame of an abandoned car. My vision blurred, and I could taste blood in my mouth. The shotgun, meanwhile, had been transformed into a twisted piece of scrap metal by the explosion.

Through the ringing in my ears, I could hear the infected approaching.

I tried to stand but found that my legs weren’t responding properly.

Shit. I wasn’t going to make it to cover in time.

The nearest infected was maybe twenty feet away and closing fast. I could see the hunger in its eyes.

Then Rachel appeared.

She emerged from the pharmacy. She dropped to her knees beside me and wrapped her arms around my body, pulling me close in a protective embrace.

"Rachel, no!" I tried to push her away, tried to make her run for safety. "Get back inside!"

But something extraordinary happened. As the infected closed in for the kill, they encountered something invisible—a barrier that stopped them as effectively as a wall of steel. I could see their confusion as they pressed against the obstruction, their claws scraping against something that wasn’t there but was undeniably real.

The barrier shimmered faintly in the air around us, a translucent dome of red energy that held them at bay. It wasn’t something I was doing.

I stared at Rachel in shock, seeing the concentration on her face, the way her eyes glowed faintly with the same red energy as the barrier.

The barrier held for almost a minute before beginning to flicker and fade. Rachel’s strength was giving out, and the infected were growing more agitated as they pressed against the weakening defense.

"Come on!" She said, hauling me to my feet with surprising strength. "We need to get inside before this fails completely!"

I managed to stand, though every movement sent fresh waves of pain through my battered body. As we stumbled toward the pharmacy, I noticed something glinting on the ground where the creature had died—a red crystalline stone about the size of a golf ball, pulsing faintly with its own inner light.

Despite everything, I grabbed it as we passed. Whatever this thing was, it had come from inside the creature, and instinct told me it might be important.

We burst through the pharmacy’s broken front door just as Rachel’s barrier finally collapsed completely. I immediately grabbed a metal display rack and wedged it against the door while Rachel found a mop handle to reinforce it.

"Careful," I warned Rachel as we moved deeper into the pharmacy. "There could be more infected inside."

I pulled out my flashlight from my bag and swept the beam across the interior. The place had clearly been looted multiple times—most of the shelves were bare, and debris was scattered everywhere. But it wasn’t completely empty, and more importantly, it seemed clear of immediate threats.

"Back there," I said, pointing toward a door behind the prescription counter. "We can secure that room and wait for things to calm down outside."

The back room was small and cramped, filled with empty shelving and the detritus of a looted medical facility. But it had only one entrance, which made it defensible, and thick walls that would muffle any sounds we made.

We settled down on the floor, backs against opposite walls, both of us breathing heavily from exhaustion and adrenaline crash.

"What was that?" Rachel asked after several minutes of silence. "That barrier... I could feel it, like it was part of me, but I have no idea how I did it."

I studied her face in the light of my flashlight, seeing the confusion and fear in her eyes. She was going through the same awakening I’d experienced days ago, but hers seemed more dramatic, more powerful.

"The virus," I said simply. "It’s given you an ability, just like it did for me. Some kind of protective field that can shield people from harm."

"Ability?" She looked at her hands as if seeing them for the first time. "You mean like... superpowers?"

"I suppose that’s one way to put it." I pulled out the red crystal I’d recovered and held it up to the light. It was warm to the touch and seemed to pulse in rhythm with my heartbeat. "I can manipulate time—stop it for about ten seconds. And apparently, you can create protective barriers."

Rachel stared at me in shock. "You can stop time? Is that how you got behind that thing so quickly?"

I nodded, still examining the crystal.

"But we’re still us, right?" She asked. "We’re still the same people we were before?"

"I’d like to think so." I tucked the crystal into my pack, making a mental note to study it more carefully later. "But honestly, I’m not sure anyone knows what we’re becoming."

Rachel was quiet for a long moment, processing everything that had happened. When she spoke again, her voice was small and uncertain. "Did you kill it? The creature?"

I looked at the twisted remains of Martin’s shotgun, now little more than scrap metal after the explosion. "I think so. Direct hit to what I hope was its brain, followed by it exploding like a bomb. If that didn’t kill it, I’m not sure what would."

"Do you think there are others like it?" The question I’d been dreading, but one that had to be asked.

I sighed. "I’d be lying if I said no. That thing looked purpose-built, like it was designed specifically for fight or battle..."

"Our world is truly doomed then," Rachel whispered.

I wanted to disagree, to offer some hope or reassurance, but the evidence was becoming harder to ignore. The coordinated infected, the living weapons, the systematic destruction of the municipal office—this wasn’t just a plague that had gotten out of hand. This was warfare, and we were losing.

We sat in silence for several minutes, each lost in our own dark thoughts. Then I noticed Rachel beginning to fidget, her expression twisting with pain as she pressed her hands against her temples.

"You’re experiencing headaches, aren’t you?" I asked, recognizing the symptoms. "Severe pain, like someone’s driving spikes through your skull?"

Rachel glanced at me and nodded weakly, clearly trying to downplay her suffering.

"That’s normal," I said, though the word felt inadequate for what she was going through. "It’s your brain adapting to the new neural pathways the virus creates. I went through the same thing when my abilities first manifested, but in your case, it might be worse."

"Worse?" She asked through gritted teeth.

"Your body wasn’t originally meant to host the virus," I explained. "You got infected later, through contact with me. The integration process is more traumatic when it happens that way."

Rachel leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes as another wave of pain washed over her. "How long does it last?"

"That depends," I said carefully. "With proper stabilization, it could be over in hours. Without it..."

I didn’t finish the sentence, but we both knew what I was implying. The virus could burn out her nervous system, leaving her a vegetable or worse.

"Rachel," I said quietly, "if you need me to stabilize the process, there’s no better time than right now."