Chapter 50 – Ghost in the Storm

Carter's Point of View

The blizzard howled around me, a wall of swirling white swallowing the world whole. My breath came in sharp, ragged gasps as I pressed my back against the cold steel of a half-buried vehicle. The Iron Hand Syndicate was gone. The creatures had driven them away. And now, I was alone.

Again.

I glanced down at my hands—shaking, blood-streaked. Some of it mine. Most of it not.

James should be dead.

I had stabbed him, made sure the wound was deep enough to slow him, to cripple him. But something about that bastard wouldn't break. He was supposed to be ordinary, another survivor with a stash of tech too good for this broken world. But he wasn't.

James was something else.

I had seen the way he fought, the way he adapted. The way he looked at the chaos around him not with fear, but with calculation.

And that was dangerous.

The Betrayal

I had made my choice back at the facility.

I could've stayed. Could've played nice.

But the Syndicate offered me something better—power. A way to get back on top, to carve my own future instead of surviving off scraps like the rest of these pathetic fools.

And yet…

I clenched my teeth, trying to shake the nagging feeling crawling up my spine. The Syndicate wasn't supposed to lose.

We had numbers, weapons, discipline. James had a bunch of desperate survivors, cobbled-together defenses, and whatever scraps of technology he managed to scavenge.

And yet, we lost.

No—not we.

They lost.

I had made sure to keep my hands out of the real fight. I had guided them to weaknesses in James' defenses, pointed out blind spots in his perimeter, even sabotaged a few key systems before the attack.

But when the battle turned? When those things came screeching out of the darkness, tearing through Syndicate soldiers like wet paper?

I had vanished.

The Escape

The Syndicate's retreat had been fast, chaotic. Men who had trained for years, hardened killers, running like terrified children.

Because they weren't ready for them.

The creatures had moved with an intelligence that shouldn't exist, coordinating in ways that suggested something worse than hunger. And the sounds—God, the sounds. They didn't just kill. They played with their prey, dragging the screams through the storm.

It had been the perfect distraction.

While the Syndicate fled, I had slipped away in the opposite direction, ducking past burning wreckage and torn bodies. The facility was no longer an option. James would have every inch locked down now.

I needed to regroup. I needed to—

A low, wet clicking sound echoed through the snow.

I froze.

The storm swallowed most sounds, but this one slithered through the wind, unnatural and deliberate.

Slowly, I turned my head.

A figure crouched just beyond the edge of visibility, barely a shadow against the white haze. Elongated limbs, too many joints. Its body seemed to pulse, shifting as if it was adjusting its form to match its surroundings.

A Void Stalker.

Shit.

I moved before it did.

The Hunt Begins

Diving into the snow, I rolled behind a chunk of collapsed concrete, my pulse hammering in my throat.

A second later, a blur of motion lashed past where I had just been, the sound of air tearing in its wake.

I didn't hesitate.

I reached for the knife at my belt, but my fingers found only empty leather.

Gone.

Right. I had left it buried in James' gut.

I cursed under my breath. Improvising wasn't new to me, but fighting one of these things without a weapon? That was a death sentence.

The Void Stalker's breath came in ragged, uneven bursts. It was watching. Calculating.

I needed a weapon.

Scanning the wreckage, my eyes locked onto a half-buried Syndicate rifle a few feet away.

I lunged.

The snow exploded around me as the Stalker moved, a blur of writhing limbs and snapping jaws.

I hit the ground hard, pain flaring in my ribs as claws raked across my back. Blood soaked my jacket, but I didn't stop.

Fingers wrapping around cold metal, I ripped the rifle from the snow and spun—

Click.

Empty.

A breath of ice-cold air against my neck.

I twisted just as the creature struck, its clawed hand slicing through the air where my head had been a second earlier.

Using the rifle as a club, I smashed it against the creature's arm. The impact barely made it flinch.

Not good.

I needed an opening—something, anything.

And then I saw it.

A rusted-out vehicle frame, the remains of a pre-collapse truck. And inside? A fuel canister.

A desperate plan formed.

I bolted.

The Void Stalker let out a screech and followed, closing the distance in a heartbeat.

Reaching the vehicle, I grabbed the fuel canister and spun, hurling it at the creature's feet.

The Stalker hesitated. A mistake.

I ripped a flare from my belt, igniting it with a snap. The red light bathed the snow in an eerie glow.

For the first time, the Void Stalker seemed to understand.

It tried to leap back—

Too late.

I threw the flare.

A whoomph of heat and fire engulfed the creature, its shriek cutting through the storm as flames raced up its body.

It thrashed, its form shifting wildly, trying to adapt. But fire wasn't something it could morph away from.

It collapsed into the snow, twitching as the flames ate through its flesh.

I didn't wait to watch it die.

I turned and ran.

The Road Ahead

I didn't stop running until the storm swallowed everything behind me.

My breath burned. My body screamed. But I was alive.

That was all that mattered.

The Syndicate had fallen. The creatures had turned the battlefield into a graveyard. And James? He was still out there.

Which meant I had unfinished business.

This wasn't over.

Not by a long shot.

I didn't know where I'd go yet.

But I knew one thing.

James might've won the battle.

But the war?

That was just beginning.

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Carter has escaped, but at what cost?

Do you think he'll return with another force? Or is he finally on his own?

And what about the creatures? Could they be learning from us?

Let me know what you think in the comments!