If there was anything Lin Feng least wanted to encounter at night, a Volatile was firmly in the top three.

But by this point, it wasn't about what he wanted anymore. It was about how to put this nocturnal killer down.

"Fuck! It's a Volatile! No ammo, fall back — find yourselves something! Anyone with rounds, suppress it with me!"

Lin Feng's roar cut through the chaos. He swung the muzzle around and hammered short bursts at the dark shape, pulling the trigger again and again.

A Volatile at night was nothing like its weakened daytime version. Speed, strength, constitution, all of it multiplied several times over. It moved like something that shouldn't exist.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

The rifle could suppress it. It couldn't stop it.

Lin Feng watched, helpless, as the creature ate up dozens of meters in under five seconds and tore straight into the walker horde.

It didn't have a concept of friendly fire. Not even close. At a dead sprint, it didn't slow down a beat, bowled walkers aside like they were nothing, then launched itself into the air and cleared the two-meter ditch clean.

"Fuck! Fuck! What the hell is that thing?!"

Merle had finally spotted it. The M4 swung around, suppressing fire opening up.

Abraham stood there for a half-second too long, staring at the purplish-black shape cutting through the dark. "Fuck! What kind of damn thing is that?!"

Nobody could answer. Everyone who'd fought in the last Volatile extermination was already sprinting toward the armory.

The Volatile slowed for a moment after clearing the ditch. Across that purplish-black body, several bullet holes wept foul, dark blood.

It let out a low, guttural roar, rage and something like excitement tangled together, then it surged again. One more bound. It cleared the chevaux-de-frise at the camp's front and landed inside the farm.

The impact hit like an artillery shell. A dull, heavy boom tore through the lawn, sending turf and grass flying in every direction.

Behind the sandbags, Rosita froze. The purplish-black shape had appeared out of nowhere and the mind just went blank, body trembling before the decision to tremble had even been made.

What was that thing? A mutated walker?

Rick and Abraham opened fire, trying to pin the nocturnal killer down with handguns.

The Volatile barely paused after landing. Instinct kicked it into a spring, it twisted away from the incoming rounds, and then it was already lunging at the nearest target.

Neil.

It moved like a streak of black against the dark, dragging a foul, reeking wind behind it. Both claws drove deep into Neil's shoulder blades. The impact slammed Neil to the ground.

A cry tore out, short, raw, instinctive.

Then the Volatile dipped its head and tore Neil's throat out.

Lin Feng was already pulling the trigger.

"Thwip, thwip, thwip —"

Rounds poured out of the muzzle, kinetic force driving them into the Volatile's skull and Neil's. Bone shattered. Half the head came apart.

Rick and Abraham closed in with follow-up shots, both pouring bullets into the creature.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

A few rounds later, the Volatile's massive frame dropped. It collapsed onto Neil and stopped moving.

Rick and Abraham lowered their handguns. Pale. Cold sweat on their brows.

Fast. Too fast. Their handguns hadn't been able to track it at all. If Lin Feng hadn't caught that one split-second window, Neil wouldn't have been the only one dead tonight.

Up on the watchtower, Lin Feng dragged in two ragged breaths. His eyes were red. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

He'd run every calculation he could think of. A mature Volatile joining the raid hadn't been one of them, and it had punched straight through the camp's interior during a gap in their firepower.

That was a loud warning bell.

The camp's defenses were solid enough against slow walkers, the Wildfire Virus variants. Against the Harran Virus fast-movers, they were practically useless.

When the rest of the camp came running with whatever weapons they'd grabbed, they found the Volatile's collapsed body and the figure pinned beneath it.

A beat of dead silence.

Then Lin Feng called out, and weapons came back up. The group spread out and kept clearing, walkers still drifting toward the ditch, still packing the driveway.

Especially the driveway. Only a few heavy chevaux-de-frise blocked it, and the horde had been grinding against them the whole fight, the barricades groaning and creaking and grinding backward under the pressure. They hadn't collapsed. They were still there, still holding, walkers caught on the spikes, pushed forward by the mass behind them, arms swinging in the dark.

Orion and Marcus locked their fire onto that stretch without a word between them. Bullets punched through skull after skull. Blood sprayed in bursts, again and again.

It didn't take long. The walkers on open ground were finished. Lin Feng let out a breath, grabbed a fresh magazine, and climbed down from the watchtower.

"The ones in the ditch get cleared tonight. Not tomorrow. We're not leaving that for later."

Daryl and the others nodded without a word. They moved the chevaux-de-frise aside together and walked out onto the driveway to finish off the walkers still in the trench.

Gunfire picked back up.

Inside the camp, Abraham and Rosita hauled the Volatile off Neil. What was underneath wasn't easy to look at.

Contra cursed once, grabbed a weapon, and walked out to join the cleanup.

Rosita let out a slow breath. Then, carefully, with a handkerchief, started cleaning the blood from Neil's face.

The two hadn't crossed paths much over the past month. But Rosita could do this much.

At least let Neil go with some dignity.

Outside, the last shots faded. Lin Feng left Orion and Daryl to make the final sweep, then turned to Andrew.

"Andrew. UV lamps — move that to the top of the list. I want them installed before tomorrow afternoon."

Andrew wiped the sweat from a forehead and nodded. "Understood, Lin."

Lin Feng nodded and turned to leave.

Then stopped.

He looked back into the dark.

Out there in the pitch-black night, something was watching him.

➤ Next: Eugene's Lie — Face to Face

Chapter 86 - Eugene's Lie — Face to Face

The next day.

Beside the oak tree to the west, another new cross had been added. A dog tag necklace hung from it, drifting in the breeze, flipping over, then settling back with a dull clink.

Lin Feng's brow hadn't eased once since he'd woken up.

There were too many suspicious points about last night. Too many by half.

First: that howling walker hadn't howled earlier or later, it opened its throat right at the halfway point?

Second: that Volatile hadn't shown up earlier or later, it appeared precisely when the camp's firepower hit a gap.

Third: that final gaze, watching from the dark...

Piece it all together, and it formed a net. A net drawn around this camp.

The more Lin Feng turned it over, the more wrong it felt. A cold, crawling certainty rose from somewhere deep, the feeling of being hunted. He pointed toward the direction from last night and called out:

"Daryl. Do something for me — go check out that way. I think someone was watching us last night."

The words landed and the crowd preparing to clear the walker corpses stopped cold. Every head turned toward Lin Feng, eyes full of confusion and questions.

Daryl didn't ask. One look at the steadiness in Lin Feng's eyes and Daryl gave a single nod. "Alright."

Crossbow on back, Daryl stepped over the barrier and headed off in the direction Lin Feng had pointed.

Rick frowned and asked quietly, "Lin... you don't think what happened last night was..."

Lin Feng shook his head. "I don't know. But I can't rule it out. A horde that size appearing out of nowhere in an area this sparsely populated — that already says plenty."

The words rippled through the camp. People began exchanging looks. Right, where had that many walkers even come from?

Orion, who ran threat assessments as second nature, seemed to slot the last piece into place. "The timing of that mutated walker's appearance... was a little too perfect.

It felt like a tactic. The horde wore down our ammunition. Then it moved in for the harvest."

Once Orion stripped that layer away, a deep unease moved through everyone present.

Either that thing had a brain of its own, or... someone had been pulling its strings.

The first option, they could work with. The second was something else entirely, no way to predict, no way to guard against.

And they had no idea when that someone would come back. What they could be certain of was this: the next move would be bigger. More decisive. And it wouldn't end with just one person in the camp dying.

"Holy shit..." Merle muttered. "We're being targeted? What for? The unharvested wheat? Or..."

"It's Eugene." Abraham cut in, voice flat and certain. "Eugene's head holds the research method for a viral cure — something that could end this whole catastrophe. Save the world."

Every gaze in the camp shifted to Eugene, standing at the edge of the group. A ripple of surprise moved through the crowd.

Well. So it was this kid all along.

Eugene stood where Eugene was, forcing an expression of calm, as if having known this moment was coming.

"Which is exactly why I need your escort, Abraham?"

Rick stared at the shifty-eyed figure and couldn't shake the feeling that something was being held back.

Rick glanced at Lin Feng, but Lin Feng's eyes weren't on Eugene at all. That told Rick enough. Lin knew something.

Contra nodded. "Don't worry, I will. But right now... we can't stay here any longer. Every day we do is another day of trouble for this camp. We need to move as soon as we can, put distance between us and them. That's better for everyone."

Eugene's expression hitched. A flicker crossed Eugene's face.

Run? Was Contra out of Contra's mind?

Out there were mutated walkers that moved like they'd been fired from a gun, capable of punching straight through a multi-person firing line. Run into one of those, and it'd be over.

A string of excuses surfaced in rapid succession, feeling unwell, it's too dangerous out there, maybe last night was just a coincidence, and Eugene shot each one down.

Because Eugene already knew. To someone as driven as Contra, none of those were reasons. They were just noise.

Death wasn't something Contra hadn't considered. It was something Contra had already made peace with, long before any of this.

Abraham already carried something dark at the core, self-loathing, a lean toward self-destruction. Now there was a road laid out that offered a chance to do something for others, maybe even save the world entire. How could Abraham not take it?

So Eugene started to panic. Quietly, steadily. Eugene didn't want to give up the life the camp had offered, the relative quiet, the routine, the safety. Eugene didn't want to walk back out into the unknown.

There was only one way to stop Abraham from moving forward.

Confess.

Eugene looked toward Abraham, who was already calculating a departure window. Eugene's lips moved.

Nothing came out.

By now, Orion and Marcus had both caught the shift in the air. Merle didn't bother hiding it, a short, sharp snort of laughter, like someone watching a joke land exactly as expected.

Which, as it happened, it was.

Lin Feng glanced over at Eugene. The look was brief and blade-sharp, and Eugene took an involuntary step back.

Time kept moving. Abraham disappeared into the tent to start packing.

The rest of the camp didn't scatter. They waited, gathered where they stood, for Daryl to return with whatever answer was out there.

Merle drifted over to Lin Feng, produced a cigarette, and asked under his breath, "What do we do about the liar? Should we..."

Merle grinned, that wide yellow-toothed grin.

Lin Feng took the cigarette and glanced toward Contra, who was already moving toward the driver's seat. "The one who needs to handle Eugene isn't me. It's Contra."

A beat.

"Besides, Eugene could stand to suffer a little. Might do something about that lying habit."

The cigarette wasn't even half finished when Contra pulled the off-road vehicle around.

"I'm sorry, Lin." Contra's voice was genuine. "I was hoping to pay you back before we left, do something useful, call it even for saving my life. But staying longer is only going to bring more heat down on this place. Once I've seen Eugene through, I'll come back. I mean it."

The corner of Lin Feng's mouth ticked up. "Don't worry about it. We'll be here a good while. Come back whenever."

Merle snorted quietly, something between a laugh and a scoff. Lin Feng, that guy, cut his heart out and it'd still be black.

Contra smiled at that, and it was sincere. "Alright. Wait for me. When I get back..."

"I'm sorry, Abraham. I..."

Contra's smile stopped. Went still. The eyes moved slowly, pulled toward Eugene standing at the edge of everything.

"What did you say?"

Rosita had already gone quiet. Something had clicked. The expression shifted, eyes locking onto Eugene, filled with something that looked a lot like disbelief.

Eugene drew a breath and said it.

"I'm not a scientist. There's no viral cure in my head. There never was."

➤ Next: The Bewildered