The Dead Remember

The dead were supposed to forget.

That was what Nyra Kane believed until a corpse standing across the street called her by name.

Six months after the outbreak, Greyhaven had become a graveyard of broken buildings, abandoned vehicles, and streets stained by rain and blood. The government had stopped broadcasting emergency instructions weeks ago. Electricity worked only in scattered districts, clean water was difficult to find, and every night brought new sounds from the darkness.

People called them the infected.

Nyra called them the reason she no longer slept properly.

She crouched behind the counter of an abandoned pharmacy, holding a metal pipe in both hands. Her backpack lay open beside her, containing two bottles of water, a packet of crackers, three bandages, and a small knife.

She had come looking for antibiotics.

Instead, she had found an empty shelf, a broken window, and something scratching at the front door.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Nyra held her breath.

The scratching stopped.

She waited five seconds, then ten.

A heavy impact shook the entrance.

"Not today," she whispered.

The door rattled again. Through the narrow gap beneath it, she saw the shadow of a pair of feet dragging across the floor.

An ordinary infected.

She could handle one, provided it didn't make too much noise.

Nyra moved towards the storage room, searching for another exit. She had explored the pharmacy twice before, but she checked the shelves again, pushing aside empty boxes and broken bottles.

Nothing useful.

Then came a crash.

The front door had fallen inward.

A wet growl echoed through the pharmacy.

Nyra grabbed her backpack and hurried towards the stairs at the back of the storage room. They led to a small apartment above the shop. If she could reach the window, she might cross into the next building and escape.

She had almost reached the top when something slammed into the stairwell door below.

The infected had found her.

Nyra ran.

She burst into the apartment and shoved a wooden cabinet against the entrance. The door shook under the creature's weight.

She climbed onto a table beneath the window.

The next building stood across a gap of nearly four feet.

Below, the street was filled with abandoned cars and broken glass.

Nyra swallowed.

She had made worse jumps.

Probably.

The door cracked.

She leapt.

Her hands caught the opposite windowsill. Pain shot through her injured leg as her boots scraped the brick wall. For one terrible second, she hung above the street, her fingers slipping against the dusty stone.

Then she pulled herself up and rolled through the window.

She landed hard on the floor.

Behind her, the infected screamed.

Nyra stayed down until the sound faded. Then she checked the bandage around her leg. It was loose, but the wound hadn't reopened.

"Wonderful," she muttered. "Nearly eaten for medicine that isn't even here."

She rose and searched the apartment for supplies. Most cupboards were empty, but she found a bottle of water beneath the kitchen sink.

As she slipped it into her bag, she noticed a photograph on the table.

A family stood outside a house, smiling at the camera. A little boy sat on his father's shoulders while a woman held a baby against her chest.

Nyra looked away.

Before the outbreak, she had believed there would always be another birthday, another meal with her family, another ordinary day.

Then Blackridge happened.

She had promised herself she wouldn't think about it anymore.

She had broken that promise every day for six months.

Nyra left the apartment through a broken stairwell and returned to the street. Her shelter was three blocks away, inside the basement of an old laundromat. It wasn't comfortable, but she'd reinforced the entrance with metal sheets and bricks.

It was the closest thing she had to a home.

She moved through the streets carefully, keeping close to the buildings. The infected were usually drawn to noise, but the newer ones had begun behaving strangely. Some remained still for hours. Others followed sounds long after the people who made them had disappeared.

Two days earlier, Nyra had watched a group of infected turn away from a screaming dog and walk towards an empty hospital.

She still couldn't explain it.

At the next intersection, she stopped.

Something stood on the roof of a building across the street.

A man.

His clothes were torn, his skin grey, and dark veins spread across his neck. One eye was clouded over. The other watched her from beneath a bruised brow.

Nyra immediately ducked behind an overturned car.

She waited.

Usually, infected reacted to movement. If they spotted a living person, they charged or began wandering towards the sound.

This one did neither.

Nyra raised her head just enough to look over the car.

The man was still standing on the roof.

He was staring directly at her.

She lowered herself again.

"Move on," she whispered.

A soft tapping came from above.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Nyra frowned.

She had knocked on the pharmacy's rear door in that exact pattern before entering. It was a habit she'd developed after nearly walking into a room full of infected during her first week alone.

She looked up again.

The man raised one hand and tapped the rooftop wall three times.

Nyra's stomach tightened.

Coincidence.

It had to be.

She stood and hurried towards the laundromat, refusing to look back. She reached the shelter just before sunset, slipped through the concealed entrance, and dragged the metal panel into place.

Only when she was safely inside did she allow herself to breathe.

She emptied her backpack onto the floor.

Water. Crackers. Bandages.

No antibiotics.

Nyra rubbed her face with both hands.

She couldn't afford to get sick. She couldn't afford to waste supplies. Most importantly, she couldn't afford to make a mistake.

She had survived this long by depending on nobody.

Depending on people had cost her everything.

A faint rustling came from the outer pocket of her backpack.

Nyra froze.

She was certain she'd emptied that pocket before leaving the pharmacy.

Slowly, she reached inside and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

It was stained around the edges, but the writing was clear.

BLACKRIDGE. SUBJECT D-17. ALIVE.

Nyra stopped breathing.

She knew that identification code.

She had seen it on the plastic band around her younger brother's wrist six months earlier, just before the guards sealed the evacuation gate between them.

Kael Kane.

Seventeen years old. Brilliant, stubborn, and always asking questions he probably shouldn't have asked.

The last time Nyra had seen him, he had been trapped behind that gate, shouting her name as security officers pushed her towards an evacuation vehicle.

She had promised to come back for him.

She had never returned.

For six months, she had told herself that he was dead because believing anything else hurt too much.

Now someone had left her a message saying he was alive.

Her fingers trembled as she turned the paper over.

A black symbol had been stamped on the back: a circle crossed by three narrow lines. She recognized it from the security uniforms at Blackridge.

Beneath the symbol was another message.

DO NOT LET COMMANDER VOSS FIND HIM FIRST.

Nyra read it twice.

Then a third time.

Whoever had written it knew about Kael. They knew where he had been held, and they knew someone named Commander Voss was looking for him.

A distant howl rose from the street.

Another answered it.

Nyra moved towards the narrow window overlooking the road.

The infected man in the blue shirt stood beneath the broken streetlight outside her shelter.

She couldn't see how he had followed her.

He tilted his head towards the building, then raised his hand.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Nyra stepped away from the window.

The creature lowered its hand.

For several seconds, it remained perfectly still.

Then its mouth opened.

"Nyra."

The sound was faint, rough, and almost buried beneath the wind.

But she heard it.

Her name.

The infected turned and disappeared into the darkness.

Nyra stood frozen beside the window, the paper clenched in her fist.

She wanted to believe she had imagined it. Fear could make people hear things. Exhaustion could turn shadows into monsters.

But she had heard her name too clearly.

And if the infected could remember her, what else could they remember?

The people they had killed?

The places they had lived?

The secrets they had carried before they died?

Nyra returned to her backpack and began packing again. She added the metal pipe, her knife, the remaining food, and the paper with Kael's identification code.

She would leave Greyhaven at first light.

Blackridge was dangerous, but it was the only lead she had. If Kael was alive, she would find him. If Commander Voss was holding him, she would discover why.

And if someone had turned her brother into an experiment, she would make them answer for it.

Outside, unseen figures began moving through the ruined streets.

One by one, the infected turned towards the same distant point beyond the city.

None of them screamed.

None of them fought.

They simply walked, as though they had received a signal that only the dead could hear.

And somewhere beyond Greyhaven, a young man opened his eyes behind a wall of reinforced glass.

His skin was pale. Dark veins spread beneath his jaw.

A researcher leaned towards the observation microphone.

"Subject D-17, can you understand me?"

The young man didn't answer.

The researcher tried again.

"Do you remember your name?"

For several seconds, there was only silence.

Then the boy turned his head towards the speaker.

"Kael," he whispered.

The researcher stiffened.

Kael pressed his palm against the glass.

"Where's my sister?"