Story 835: The Alpha Strain

The stench of burning flesh still hung in the air. The Sleeper’s corpse lay in a smoldering heap, its once-mutating body now reduced to charred remains. But the unease hadn’t left.

Reaper wiped blood from his mouth, his muscles still tense. “That was too easy.”

Evelyn shot him a glare. “Easy? You got thrown through a car.”

He grinned, cracking his neck. “Still breathing.”

Mia kicked at the blackened corpse, her shotgun still raised. “Think it’s dead for real?”

A low growl rumbled through the night.

Their breaths caught.

Across the ruins of the street, a figure emerged from the shadows.

It was bigger.

Taller than a man, but hunched forward on massive, sinewy arms. Its skin glistened under the firelight, a sickly, golden hue stretched over cords of pulsating muscle. Its face was worse—what looked like a skull covered in shifting, plated armor, its brain partially exposed and throbbing. And that tongue. Long, thick, twitching, tasting the air.