Seraphina's Revenge: A Rebirth In The Apocalypse Novel

Chapter 106: Dawn Of The Dead

The warehouse smelled of iron and sweat and cheap liquor. Blood streaked the floor, boot prints smeared across it, broken cards and glass glinting under the overhead lamps.

The last of the wolves lay scattered—some were unconscious, some were moaning, and a few of them were clutching wounds that pumped dark, wet stains between their fingers.

Sera stood at the center of the chaos, breathing steady, the creature restless under her ribs. Her horde had done its work, swift and precise, and now only one thing remained.

The bay doors hung crooked on their tracks, bent during the scuffle. Through the gap between them, the night pressed close. To the men, it was only shadow and snow. To Sera, it was alive.

Figures swayed in the dark. Lean shapes, half-broken, teeth gleaming faint in the spill of lamplight. Their hunger reached her like heat, the thrum of starving dogs straining against chains.

She felt them before she saw them, the pressure in her chest tightening until her creature purred in answer. The horde was waiting, and she had to feed them.

Lachlan kicked a wolf’s dropped rifle away, his breath fogging in the cold air that slid in from outside. "What’s the plan?" he asked Zubair without looking up.

"Alive, for now," Zubair replied. He checked the nearest captive with clinical disinterest, pressing his boot into the man’s wrist until he let go of the knife he’d hidden under his leg. "We bind them. Then we decide."

But his eyes flicked once, unconsciously, toward Sera.

The creature inside her stretched, delighted by the weight of attention. Alpha commands, it hummed. Horde obeys.

Sera stepped to the warped bay door. She didn’t open it all the way—only enough to let the scent of blood and fear pour out into the night.

The zombies surged closer instantly, pressing into the gap. Their ragged mouths opened in silent hunger, their bodies twitching with need. They should have charged. They should have rushed in to claw and bite.

But they didn’t.

They stopped at the threshold, swaying, their ruined hands clawing at air they wouldn’t cross without permission.

Because she was there.

Sera tilted her head, the way the creature did when it weighed the worth of prey. Behind her, the wolves groaned and whimpered when they saw what was at the door. Some even begged for their lives, but for the most part, their cries fell on deaf ears.

Her voice was calm when she spoke, quiet but sharp enough to cut. "They’re yours."

The horde heard her. She felt their response like a ripple of lightning across her skin, the pull of gravity reversed.

And then they came.

The first zombie squeezed through the gap, its jaw slack, as its eyes were nothing more than black orbs inside a blue head. Its moan cracked the air and the others answered, shoving forward in a wet, staggering wave.

They fell on the nearest wolf with no hesitation.

The man’s scream was sharp, high, tearing. His boots skidded against the concrete as hands dragged him down. Teeth sank into his thigh, ripping cloth and meat in one savage pull. Blood sprayed hot across the floor.

Another wolf scrambled back, slipping in the mess, his injured leg folding under him. Two zombies hit him at once, gnawing at his shoulder, his chest, tearing through leather and skin. He howled, voice breaking into gurgles.

The horde flooded the room, drawn to blood, to fear, to the feast promised them.

A man tried to crawl, dragging himself toward the back door, leaving a dark smear behind him. A zombie clamped teeth into his ankle and ripped it backward with a crack of bone. He clawed at the floor until nails split, until another corpse fell on him and bit his throat open.

The smell hit thick and heavy—copper, rot, the hot stink of opened guts.

Alexei swore softly in his mother tongue, watching with a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. "Karma," he muttered, though his knuckles tightened on the stock of his rifle. "She’s a bitch."

Elias didn’t speak. His face was stone, but his eyes flicked once toward Sera, sharp and assessing.

Lachlan stood at her side, not looking at the carnage. He looked at her instead, steady, silent, making sure her shoulders stayed square and her breathing even.

Zubair alone watched with the calm of a man tallying numbers. "Efficient," he said finally.

The wolves screamed, thrashed, and fell silent one by one. Bones cracked under the teeth of hundreds of zombies as flesh tore wetly. The sound of chewing filled the warehouse, obscene in its rhythm.

Sera didn’t flinch. The creature inside her purred deep, satisfied. This was right. This was balance. The wolves had stolen, threatened, tried to dominate. Now they were nothing but meat.

One of them, half-gone already, managed a final look up at her as his chest caved under gnawing jaws. His lips worked around a sound that never came, eyes wide with hatred and fear, before they rolled back into the blank of death.

The horde fed until the floor was slick, until ribs gleamed under the torn mess of muscle, until silence fell again but for the slow shuffling of the sated dead.

They didn’t turn on her.

They never even looked her way.

They stood, swaying, blood painting their mouths and hands, and then... they waited.

Her creature raised its head inside her chest, and she spoke without hesitation. "Go."

The horde shuddered as one, then peeled away into the night, dragging scraps, leaving only silence and ruin behind.

The warehouse reeked of death. The floor was slick, the air wet with iron.

Alexei broke the quiet first, his voice a low chuckle. "Remind me never to steal your chocolate again."

"Noted," Sera replied, her voice even as a sly smile appeared on her face.

Elias finally looked away from her, checked the loft where the sniper had fallen. "Clear."

Zubair pulled a rag from his belt, wiped his knife clean with precise movements. "We’re done here."

Lachlan’s eyes lingered on her a moment longer, then he slung his rifle and nodded. "Let’s move."

The five of them slipped out into the snow.

The sky had begun to pale, the first smear of dawn pressing against the horizon. Their breath fogged in the cold, boots crunching over fresh drifts.

Behind them, the warehouse sagged in silence, full of corpses that would never rise again.

Ahead, the cabin waited—warm, secure, lit faintly by the promise of morning.

Sera walked in the middle of them, Oogie Boogie waiting back in her room, her creature humming full and pleased under her ribs.

For now, the world was quiet.

But dawn never lasted long.