Chapter 167 - Emp attack
The chopper hummed through the sky, slicing through the thick air of death and decay. Below them, the city was a nightmare made real. Once-bustling streets were now choked with overturned cars, bodies, and fires that cast eerie shadows against crumbling buildings. People—no, not people anymore—staggered through the streets, their eyes pools of blood, their jaws snapping mindlessly as they hunted for the living.
As the helicopter passed overhead, the infected turned their faces upward, their grotesque expressions twisted in hunger. Their hands, some broken and bent at unnatural angles, reached for the sky, as if they could pluck the aircraft from above with sheer desperation.
The soldier manning the machine gun tensed, his fingers twitching over the trigger. "Goddamn..." he whispered, his voice tight with horror. "I used to think the commander was just getting paranoid when he moved us and our families to that village... I even joked that he was losing his mind." He swallowed hard. "But if he hadn’t done that—" He turned to his teammate, his eyes wide with the dawning realization of how close they had come to sharing the same fate as those monsters below. "We’d be dead. Or worse."
Another soldier, sitting beside him, shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, but explain this to me—how the hell did Team Lion’s men turn? They never even set foot in the city. They were supposed to be on standby. So how...?"
Silence fell for a moment before another voice, hushed and uneasy, whispered, "Maybe they got bit and hid it?"
The team leader, a battle-hardened man with sharp eyes, shook his head. "No. They weren’t infected from bites." His voice was steady, his certainty absolute.
The others turned to him, waiting for an explanation.
The leader exhaled, his grip tightening around his weapon. "They were all druggies."
A heavy silence followed his words.
He continued, his voice edged with quiet anger. "That entire team used to take drugs in secret. The commander didn’t know about it, but I did. I tried to warn them. I told them they were weakening themselves, that one day, it’d cost them. But they laughed it off, called me a self-righteous bastard." His jaw clenched as he checked his gun’s magazine. "I guess whatever the hell this infection is, it got to them faster because of it."
One of the younger soldiers shifted uncomfortably. "Shit... you think that means anyone with a weak immune system is at risk?"