“I’m recording this in case anything happens to me.

“There’s no way out of it. The world is changed. It don’t make sense to me no more, but I do know one thing. You gotta live, no matter what. You gotta stay alive, my dear, sweet Evelyn.”

–Marquise Jones, “Unnamed”. 2 Months After.

----------------------------------------

How many times had she done this now?

In and out. In and out. The air recycled through her respirator. Her night vision goggles shaded her vision in a layer of green. Her skin chafed against the plastic hardsuit on top and combat fatigues beneath. One would think that today was just another day in her world. Nothing to worry about.

They would be both right and wrong. Today was a day like any other, but what bound them together more than anything was that fear, knowing that it would all be over with a single mistake. That was it. Just one bite, or scratch, or drop of infected blood that happened to contain an HBRS Soft cell. Then it was over. Her body would weaken, her mind would empty, and she would transform into another mindless hollow. Just like everyone else she had ever known or loved.

Evelyn Jones refused to let that happen.

She shuffled through the blackened halls of the outer bunker, her feet making neither sound nor impression against the concrete foundation. The suppressor on her M4 jerked this way and that as she sought out threats. No surprises at fire control. Nothing at the dorms either. She paused near Ops when a rumble broke the stillness, but it was just a boiler acting up.

On and on, Evelyn cleared the bunker, zone by zone. This was protocol for whenever anything triggered the topside motion alarms. Kill the lights, disable radios to enter EMCON, and give the outer bunker a fresh sweep before working back from there. Evelyn had gone through this routine more than she could count. Ever since Mother left Cheyenne under her stewardship, this had become another part of her life. It was almost always a deer or raccoon that forced the lockdown. Sometimes a hollow found a gap in the fence. Never a real problem though. Never, ever.

Until it was.

Her heart stopped in her chest. Two steel blast doors protected the bunker below Cheyenne Mountain, well over three feet thick and reinforced by hydraulic servos. They were angled against a miles-long tunnel that could deflect the power of a nuclear warhead, even if it landed right above. This was the ultimate defense. Nothing could breach those doors, living or dead.

The air around them though? That didn’t enter their home by magic. Instead, a heavily filtered, double-plated HVAC system pumped fresh air into the bunker while cooling it enough to keep this place habitable. It was the only way that anyone could survive down here. Their lifeline to the outside world, but also a gap in their armor.

And gaps could be exploited.

Evelyn stared wide-eyed at the empty hole where the grates into the vent were supposed to be. That did not happen by accident.

She twirled on her feet and rushed for the nearest cover, her head thrusting from side to side as her breath struggled to stay even. She checked and rechecked every hole larger than a rat could hide. All to no avail. Nothing else was out there. At least nothing she could see.

In and out. In and out. The words were empty. Her heart kept racing, and her night-vision goggles clogged up from the perspiration on her brow. What the hell had gotten in here!? Too much shit to have set off so many alarms at once.

This was no longer the sanctuary she’d been living in. These passages were just like the outside that she’d come to despise. Dark, lonely, and wholly terrifying.

As a child, Evelyn would have made a silent prayer in the hope that God would protect her. But those days were long since gone. She’d experienced enough of this life to know that such cries for help went unanswered.

God no longer came down here. Not anymore. Only Evelyn remained as the single and last line of defense for her family.

She turned her head. A silhouette in the shape of a person took form in the field of greens and black.

She fired without hesitation. Her ears lit up to the sound of suppressed pings in such a tight space, but the intruder did not budge. She fired another pair. No effect.

Evelyn took a step forth and blinked. Her “intruder” was a crate with a barrel on top, now leaking coolant onto backup hardware. She cursed herself, knowing that those would be impossible to repl–

She twisted again to another sound, her finger wrapped around the trigger. This time, she had enough sense to wait for another second before shooting. The noise became more recognizable. It had come from the same boiler as before, now hitting a louder beat.

This would not do. Evelyn closed her eyes and breathed deeply. In and out. In and out. This time, the words took hold. In and out. Fear was expected. Normal, even. To not fear a post-Hollowing world gave it a chance to kill her. But fear behaved like any other emotion. It needed to be controlled during crises. In and out. This breach was not the first time these walls had been penetrated. Evelyn survived that ordeal. She could do the same now if she controlled her fear, just like then. In and out.

She opened her eyes. The fogginess cleared, and her breath moved to a regular flow. She discharged her semi-used magazine and fed a fresh one in. The next time she needed to shoot, it wouldn’t be into a drum.

Evelyn began the slow and methodical retreat. Reaching the inner bunker had become the new priority. Leah was there. Liam too. He needed to know that this breach was everything they feared. Evelyn dared not break EMCON though. Too risky. No way for her to know what tools their enemies had or how long they’d been scouting them out. Her mind began to race as she considered the possibilities, but she quickly shut them off. There would be plenty of time to wonder what went wrong later. They had to win this fightnow.

Her movements were again measured as she reached the final stretch. All that remained was to clear the missile-warning center. The inner bunker had been bored directly into the granite behind there, and it was in that hole where they could muster the best defense.

But it was also here where Evelyn spotted their intruders.

She slid into cover, choosing some crates nestled against the central tunnel to maintain her vantage.

There were three of them. Black, unadorned cloaks over smooth skin. Too smooth. She blinked. Were they human?

“Are you certain that this is the spot?” one asked, his voice deep and gruff. Rezzer. Definitely a rezzer.

“I am sure, Brother Amos,” another said with the same harsh tone. “I didn’t step inside, but this is where we came to.”

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Amos placed a hand on his shoulder. “Brother Russell, we have traveled a long way over your words. Surely, you do not wish to displease the Lord.”

Russell tensed up. “I would never betray our Father. This is where we’ll find Liam Fenix!”

Her heart skipped a beat. They knew about her husband. About here. What had Liam done!?

Another stepped into view, out from the missile-warning center.

“I found a tunnel,” he said.

“Good work, Brother Hiram.” Amos nodded, and the four marched inside.

Evelyn used the chance to close the distance, swapping her M4 for the old Sig Sauer pistol she always kept on her person. The feeling of its polymer grip in her gloved hands gave a welcomed sense of security, especially as she slipped on its suppressor. It was trivial to find the right window to hide behind. These guys might have been new around here, but Evelyn knew every nook and cranny like the back of her hand.

Russell and another made their way down the hall as Evelyn waited. Amos and Hiram lingered behind in silence.

Then the lights flared on.

“Warning,” Mother’s electronic voice hailed as the automated system came online. “Intruder, detected. Infected biomatter, detected. Defenses, activating.”

“What the devil is going on in there!?” Amos shouted as he shielded himself from the light.

Russell gasped from within. “I don’t know!”

“You have ten seconds to confirm uninfected status,” the system continued. “Ten… Nine…”

“Do something!” the other rezzer shouted inside the tunnel.

Russell grunted. “Like what?”

“Six… Five… Four…”

“Retreat!” Amos ordered.

Wrong choice. Mother had designed this trump card herself. If ever any HBRS pseudo-cells were detected inside their bunker, automated turrets would activate, honing in on their prey with basic head-tracking software. There were only two ways to escape: use a nearby eye scanner to confirm uninfected status, or manually plug in Mother’s emergency override code. Anything else was doomed to fail.

So it only took another second before the hall lit up in a flurry of bullets. Evelyn didn’t need to see inside to know that Russell and his friend were goners. The moment they tripped the rearward motion sensors, the turrets had taken them out.

“What do we do now!?” Hiram asked.

“Go warn Brother Ezekiel,” Amos hissed. “He must hear about this devilry.”

Hiram gulped.

“Have faith, Brother. We have all eighty Inquisitors on this holy mission. By the Lord’s word, we will overcome this obstacle together!”

Nothing holy about this, bastard. Evelyn stepped in front of the window and took aim. Her shots hit their marks before they saw her coming, the 9mm rounds easily tearing through unprotected scalps. Amos and Hiram gasped once before falling. She leapt through the window and closed in. No movement. She popped another bullet into each. Safety always came first with the undead.

With the area cleared, Evelyn let out a sigh of relief, but it was short-lived. The immediate threat had been eliminated, but how many more were out there? Eighty by Amos’s count. What weapons would they have? Guns? Blades? Both? Where were they coordinating? Inside the bunker or topside? Were they using radios or word of mouth like their advance party? Her mind raced as she considered the possibilities.

A crash resonated out from the dorms, cutting Evelyn’s thoughts short. Too little information. Not enough time. She had to get back inside and warn Liam.

Their whole world would have to be burned.

* * *

“Are you sure you heard right?” Liam asked, his eyes widening. “There’s eighty of them out there?”

“Seventy-six if you remove the ones that got purged,” Evelyn considered before another possibility occurred. “Dammit. We don’t know if these ‘Inquisitors’ are the only Hunter group out there.”

“We don’t know if they’re Hunters either.”

Evelyn scoffed. “Who else would they be? One of them said he’d been here before. That’s happened exactly once before, Liam. You know it. I know it.”

But he only shook his head. “Leah would never allow that.”

“We haven’t seen her in half a year. A lot can happen in that time, and I mean a lot.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

I think you don’t know jack, Evelyn wanted to say. Liam had spent more than a decade on an abandoned island when the Hollowing came. He never experienced it until finding his way back home. He hadn’t lived it.

Evelyn had. She’d just been a twelve-year-old girl, forced to watch the world end. Forced to experience the violence and cruelty that came after. No one knew better how to survive this hellscape than her.

She rubbed her eyes. “Look, we’re wasting time. There’s no telling how long before reinforcements get down here, and that tunnel’s failsafe can only take out so many before someone has the bright idea of destroying the sensors. Then we’re dead in the water. We need to leave. Now.”

“We should stay. Our reserve supplies in the escape truck won’t last more than a few weeks.”

“Those odds are still better than what we’d have in here, cornered against an enemy who has breached these walls.” She took a step forth. “Let’s face it. This bunker has only ever had two primary defenses against an organized rezzer force: secrecy and the horde of ravenous hollows in the tunnels outside. We lost many of those hollows when Hades invaded, and clearly, our location is no longer a secret. There is no other choice. You know it.”

Liam went back to the crib. Their daughter stared up from within, blinking at them with those tiny, innocent eyes. If only Leah could stay here forever.

He stroked the little tufts of her black hair. “It’s too early. She’ll never make it.”

“She has to,” Evelyn said. “Now get our go-bags and put your suit on. I’ll prep the sedative.”

Before Liam could get another word in, Evelyn made for the infirmary. All the pre-Hollowing medicine had long since expired. Their chemical reagents could only last for so long. But the greenhouse had done well to cultivate all the herbs they’d needed over the years, and she had plenty in reserve. With the added education that Evelyn had been given, she was more than ready to handle any ailment on her own, from pneumonia to shingles.

Like everything else, Mother had developed a plan for this type of crisis. All that remained was seeing it through.

Evelyn ground up the Valerian root and Ephedra they kept on hand while the water warmed besides. The Valerian would act as a relaxant and put Leah to sleep, while the Ephedra would regulate her heart rate and keep her breathing. Evelyn made sure to triple-check her measurements before mixing them. The dosage would have to be perfect for this to work.

When the cocktail was complete, Evelyn drew the mixture into a syringe and returned to the crib.

But Liam stepped in between, his hardsuit only halfway zippered. “I can’t allow this.”

“We have no choice,” she repeated.

“Are you out of your bloody mind, Evelyn? If you’re off by the slightest amount, you’ll give our daughter a heart attack.”

She tilted her head, the shadow falling onto her face. “She’ll die if we stay. We’ll all die.” He had to see that she was dead fucking serious.

“You don’t know that.”

Yes, I do. “There’s no time for this.” She shoved her way past Liam. Leah stared up from the crib. Her plump lips pursed as drool ran along her chubby cheeks. Her eyes darted to the syringe as Evelyn leaned in, and she shifted nervously. God, she was so beautiful and pure. Evelyn blinked through the tears before they could well.

For a second, just a second, she almost put the syringe down. But then the rational part of her brain kicked into overdrive. Leah squirmed as the needle pierced her thigh. Her eyes then glazed over before closing, and she fell to sleep.

Liam stared dumbstruck, his mouth quivering. Evelyn turned away. That look was too much.

“How could y–”

“It’s done,” Evelyn countered, her eyes closed. “Now, get the rest of your gear together. We leave in five.”

She marched off to gather her own things, leaving Liam on his own.

Of course Evelyn hated to do this. More than he could know. But there was no choice, she reminded herself. They had to be unquestioning in their ruthlessness, just like the world above. A single moment of weakness, and all three of them were dead. At least putting Leah to sleep gave her a chance. It was the only way their daughter could survive beyond these walls.

Evelyn shoved MREs and bottled water into her rucksack, threw it over her shoulder, and zippered her hazmat suit over the leather armor beneath. Tightening the straps was easy after so much practice, and the metal shanks crunched into place without error.

All that remained was her respirator. She studied the faux fur padding that lined the interior. To think that it had once been pink, much like the plastic frame. But years of sweat had turned the padding brown, and she’d coated the plastic long ago in matte black paint to make them invisible in the dark. Yet, she’d had this very same respirator since the beginning of the outbreak. Since her own father was still alive. It might have been the last physical relic of her life with him.

Evelyn slipped the respirator onto her face and hooked her suit’s oxygen hose into the port on the side. The familiar taste of compressed air flowed free.

Her father might have died protecting her, but not even death would get between Evelyn and her daughter.