Seraphina's Revenge: A Rebirth In The Apocalypse Novel

Chapter 437: When The Dead Don’t Die

Lachlan let out a low whistle as he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the others at the front window.

"Missed one," he murmured, tapping a knuckle lightly against the glass as the movement across the street caught his eye.

The upper window of a two-story house shuddered once before a sheet-wrapped shape rolled through it.

The body scraped down the siding in awkward, spasmodic motions, hit the porch roof with a bounce, and slid down the remaining steps in a graceless heap that left flakes of rotted paint drifting in its wake.

Alexei didn’t shift his posture, but his attention followed every jerk of the creature’s limbs. "Second one this morning," he said. "I wonder if the patrols are just that stupid for missing so many or if they are getting sloppy."

Zubair folded his arms as the crawler hooked its fingers into the rotted wood, dragging itself forward inch by inch. "End of shift. They always rush the last houses, and this is what they get."

Aerenyx tilted his head, studying the creature with the detached curiosity of someone evaluating a broken toy. "This is what they classify as a threat?" he asked. "It can barely remember how its joints work."

The crawler twitched violently, the sheet sliding halfway off its frame and exposing a sunken jaw and eyes clouded with the dull glaze of death. It jerked its head in their direction as if scenting the air, trying to make sense of the pressure it felt.

Lachlan hummed to himself. "Kinda impressive it made it out the window," he agreed. "Not impressive enough to matter, but I’ll give it an ’A’ for effort."

The crawler’s entire body froze the instant its gaze aligned with their house.

Its fingers curled in the air like claws poised above a surface it couldn’t reach, and its jaw hung open in a useless attempt to process the instinct screaming through the remains of its brain.

Aerenyx’s lip curled in faint amusement. "Ah...there it is," he said. "Recognition."

Something in Zubair’s posture shifted into quiet certainty. "It knows better than to come this direction," he said. "Even it understands the difference between predator and prey."

Alexei tracked the lack of movement the way a tactician studies enemy lines. "It doesn’t know why," he said, "but something in it remembers the hierarchy."

Lachlan leaned forward just enough to avoid fogging the glass. "Do we tell Sera she’s got breakfast entertainment waiting," he asked, "or do we let her sleep?"

Aerenyx’s eyes flicked upward toward the ceiling where Sera slept. "She already knows," he said. "Her creature probably knew it was there before we did."

Lachlan eased the curtain down a fraction, watching the crawler struggle to decide whether it wanted to flee or collapse in place. The thing’s limbs spasmed once more and then went still, the thin remains of its instincts folding under a pressure it couldn’t articulate.

A soldier rounded the corner of the street with the heavy gait of someone who was already dealing with enough shit and didn’t want any more on his plate.

He spotted the movement by the porch and groaned loud enough that even they heard it through the walls. "Not again," he muttered, lifting his rifle a few inches.

Alexei shifted beside Lachlan, not tense, just focused. "They’re not surprised anymore," he said. "This is routine to them."

Zubair watched the soldier approach the porch steps. "They treat them like spilled grain," he said. "Sweep, discard, repeat."

The soldier reached the crawler and didn’t bother peeling the sheet back. He just pressed his boot against what would have been the temple and fired. The body jerked once, then loosened into dead weight again.

The man exhaled with the exhaustion of someone who had done this too many times in too short a span. "Should’ve cleared this block last night," he said to himself. "Every time someone slacks, it’s on us in the morning to stop another episode of The Walking Dead."

Aerenyx watched the man retrieve the spent casing and pocket it.

His expression didn’t change, but his voice carried a note of contempt. "If humans insist on creating these abominations," he said, "they should at least make them hardier. This is embarrassing."

Lachlan smothered a grin. "Pretty sure they weren’t aiming for ’culinary quality.’"

"That much is obvious," Aerenyx replied. "No creature with pride would rot itself this way."

The soldier walked away without looking back, his boots leaving streaks of dried blood on the pavement. Another door down the block opened, and a handful of civilians peeked out, checking whether it was safe. None dared step onto their porches yet.

Zubair let the curtain fall. "They won’t notice us," he said. "Not like this."

"Not unless they’re looking," Alexei added. "And they will look, sooner or later."

Lachlan tilted his head toward the staircase. "She awake?"

Aerenyx’s eyes flicked upward again, taking in the faint shift of aura more than sound. "Almost," he said. "The creature is stretching."

Lachlan huffed a quiet breath. "Then we better clean up the view before she wanders over and asks why her morning entertainment is crawling in from rooftops."

Alexei shot him a dry look. "She won’t ask."

"Yeah," Lachlan said with a shrug. "But she’ll see it anyway."

-------

Sera’s footsteps made a soft pattern on the hardwood floor, slow and unhurried. She didn’t bother to look at them first, but instead looked out the window to see what they were watching.

The creature inside her rose with lazy amusement, its presence smoothing through the room like heat drifting from a sun-warmed rock.

"That one was slower than the rest," she said, glancing at the porch where the body had fallen.

Aerenyx nodded once. "A weak example of decay."

Her creature pressed closer to the surface, intrigued by the faint scent still lingering in the air. Spoiled, it murmured with disdain only she could hear. If man keeps trying to craft new predators, they should at least craft something edible.

Sera’s lips twitched.

Lachlan leaned back against the wall, arms folded. "You missed the acrobatics," he said. "Window dive. Porch bounce. Stair slide. Very dramatic. I’d give it an 8.5 out of 10."

Her eyes warmed a fraction. "And you watched it all?"

"Would’ve made popcorn if we had some left."

Zubair stepped toward her, not hovering, but attentive in that steady way he reserved only for her. "We should decide our next move," he said. "This region isn’t built to keep anything contained, and the soldiers aren’t keeping pace with their own dead."

Alexei added, "People are watching more closely today."

"People always watch," Sera said. Her tone wasn’t dismissive—just factual. "But they won’t do anything unless their back is against a wall. Or someone else moves first."

Aerenyx straightened from the wall. "You want to leave now," he said, phrasing it as a recognition rather than a question.

Sera glanced at the window one last time, noting the smear of blood on the soldier’s boot prints and the civilians huddled behind curtained doors.

"This place stopped being fun the moment a third type of zombie raised it’s little head," she said. "We’ll move on and see what else the world has in store for us."

The men moved immediately, each slipping into practiced roles—packing, sweeping the house with their creatures’ senses, preparing Luci’s harness, checking exits without making noise.

Lachlan grabbed his jacket and flashed her a quick grin. "No more breakfast gymnastics shows?"

"Not here," she said. "There will be more."

Aerenyx gave a satisfied hum. "Then perhaps the next ones will fall from a higher window."