Orders from the dead

Luke stood frozen, his thoughts racing as he tried to make sense of what he'd just witnessed. What the hell was that? Zombies don't move like that. Are they even zombies? The memory of their precise, coordinated attack churned in his mind, leaving a cold weight in his chest.

"Bloody hell!" Collins exclaimed, pacing frantically. "What was that? We've got to get out of here! We can't stay in this death trap—we've been exposed!"

Collins' words snapped Luke out of his daze. He shook his head, forcing himself to focus. Across the room, Mira gripped a shard of glass so tightly her knuckles turned white.

"Mira," Luke said, his voice tight as he gently wrenched the glass from her hand. "Did you see that? They weren't just attacking—they had a plan. They were working together."

"I saw it," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "It's like...they knew what they were doing."

"They took Bayo," Jeff muttered from the corner, his voice hollow. "Dragged him like he mattered to them."

"Valuable? To a bunch of walking corpses?" Justin scoffed, though his forced laugh was shaky. "Come on, man. Zombies don't have plans. They bite, they scratch—that's it!"

"Justin's right, but we can't avoid reality," Sarah's timid voice chimed in, breaking the tension.

"Not these zombies," Luke countered sharply. "Something's different. Someone—something—is controlling them."

Collins slammed his fist into the wall, startling everyone. "That's insane! You're saying they're taking orders? From who? From what?"

"I don't know!" Luke shot back, his frustration spilling over. "But sitting here arguing won't help. If they're organized, they'll be back. And if we stay, we're dead."

Mira straightened, stepping forward with resolve. "Luke's right. We have to move. Maybe we can figure out why they took Bayo—or at least find somewhere safer. We can't just sit here waiting to die."

Justin let out a long sigh, slinging his bag over his shoulder. "So, we're chasing zombies now? Fantastic. Great plan."

"Got a better one?" Collins snapped, already gathering what few supplies he could.

As they prepared to leave, a faint beeping sound cut through the tense silence. Everyone froze, their eyes darting around until they spotted the source—a walkie-talkie lying near where Akin's group had been.

"What the hell?" Luke muttered, crouching to pick it up. Hesitantly, he pressed the button. Static crackled before a voice broke through.

"...extraction point...school perimeter breached...classified...secure the serum...Lab 001."

The message ended abruptly, leaving a deafening silence in its wake.

"Serum?" Mira asked, her brow furrowing. "What serum?"

Akin shared a look with Charles, which didn't go unnoticed by Sarah.

"No idea," Luke said, gripping the walkie-talkie tightly. "But if someone's giving orders, we need to figure out who. If this 'serum' is what they're after, it could explain everything."

Jeff stepped forward, his face grim but resolved. "Then we find this Lab 001. Whatever's there might be our only chance to understand what's going on."

Favor hesitated before speaking. "Lab 001... that's Professor Akinyemi's domain, isn't it? He always talked about his 'side projects.'"

Everyone turned to him, and he fidgeted under their stares.

"What do you mean?" Mira pressed.

Favor swallowed nervously. "I mean, he's an engineering professor, right? But he's also been running experiments—chemical ones. I've seen him hauling equipment into that lab late at night."

Luke's face darkened. "Why would an engineering professor need to run chemical experiments in a classified lab?"

"No clue," Favor replied, shrugging. "But if he's connected to this... it makes sense to start there."

Luke nodded, his jaw tightening. "Agreed. But we move quietly. If these things are following orders, whoever—or whatever—is pulling the strings won't let us just waltz in."

With a shared look of determination, they slipped out of the shattered storage building. The setting sun bathed the desolate campus in a fiery glow, its long shadows stretching like skeletal fingers across the ground. The darkness was coming, and with it, the promise of even greater dangers.

The fight wasn't over—it was just beginning.