Apocalypse Days: I Rule with Foresight and a Powerful Son
Chapter 133

Chapter 133: 133

Blinding light flooded the room as heavily armed soldiers stormed in, weapons raised.

Zara flinched, one arm instinctively wrapping around Leo, the other reaching for Winter, who sagged against the wall. The smell of smoke and blood—thick, suffocating—rushed in with them.

Civilians scattered like frightened birds, some throwing their arms over their heads, others pressing themselves into the walls, their eyes wide and panicked. A few remained frozen, staring at the soldiers as though they were nothing more than ghosts.

Harlow and his men didn’t lower their weapons. Their fingers stayed tight on the triggers, their postures rigid with distrust.

Then, a voice barks through the chaos.

"Stand down!"

Captain Darnell strode into the room, his face shadowed by exhaustion and streaked with soot and dried blood. His vest bore fresh scorch marks.

His team looked just as battered—faces tight with pain, eyes hollowed from too many close calls.

Darnell swept his gaze across the room, taking in the survivors.

Zara watched him as he quickly scanned the room, his sharp gaze assessing the survivors.

He’s calculating. She thought with a frown.

Not just for numbers—he’s sizing them up, deciding who is strong enough to be useful and who is just dead weight.

His jaw clenched, his expression unreadable. "You’re lucky we got here in time."

No one moved. No one spoke.

We’re lucky he got here in time. Zara wonders bitterly. Lucky would have been not being here at all.

A heavy silence lingered before Darnell moved further into the room with his men.

Darnell’s gaze flicked to Harlow. "We need to move. Now."

Harlow, still gripping his weapon, narrowed his eyes. "What happened to the rest of command?"

Darnell exhaled sharply, his patience fraying. "Dead. Or missing. The base is huge, people are scattered about. We’re following the last orders given to us."

"And what was that?" Harlow asked.

"Protect the civilians, clear out the base and muster at section 2."

"Sector 2 wasn’t breached?" Harlow’s eyebrows shot up.

"None of the walls were breached, it seems the creatures ca—" Darnell seemed to realise he might be speaking too much in front of the wrong crowd.

Zara’s eyes narrowed, so he also noticed that the creatures had been in the base beforehand.

He took a step forward, his tone turning sharp. "You want to argue jurisdiction, or do you want to live?"

A long, tense pause stretched between them. Harlow’s men exchanged wary glances, their distrust palpable, but they weren’t stupid.

Harlow’s jaw ticked. Then, finally, he lowered his gun. His men followed, though hesitantly.

Darnell turned, barking orders to his soldiers. "Count heads. Assess the wounded. If they can’t walk, get them on stretchers. We’re moving out in groups."

Zara barely heard him. She focused on Winter, his face drawn and pale. His wounds needed proper treatment, but she doubted he’d let himself collapse just yet.

The room stirred to life.

Some survivors obey without question, their desperation outweighing their fear. Others hesitated, staring at the door like it was a gateway to their deaths.

One of the survivors broke the silence with a sharp, shaking voice. "I’m not going out there."

"What are you talking about?" the man beside him whispered harshly.

The survivor who had spoken, a middle-aged man, shrank against the wall, arms wrapped around himself. "It’s safer here. We stay here."

Darnell didn’t even look surprised. He just nodded at two of his men.

The moment they stepped forward, the man screamed, thrashing wildly as they grabbed his arms.

"No! No, you don’t understand! They’re still out there! They’ll kill us all—"

His voice broke off into incoherent sobs as the soldiers dragged him toward the door.

Zara swallowed hard, refusing to let herself tremble.

She didn’t blame him.

But staying wasn’t an option.

With a deep breath, she adjusted Leo into the sling, giving his arms room to hold his stuffed toy then helped Winter as best as she could, slowly standing to follow the others into the hellscape waiting outside.

Darnell’s men guided them forward. Some of the civilians clutched their masks tighter, trying not to breathe in the horror around them. Others fail entirely, forced to push up their masks, retching into the debris.

Winter stumbled. Zara moved to steady him, but a soldier was already at his side. "I got him," the man grunted, hauling Winter’s arm over his shoulder.

Stepping out of the safe room was like stepping into a nightmare.

The air hit Zara like a wall—hot, and thick with the stench of burning metal and decaying flesh.

The base was in ruins.

Rubble stretched as far as she could see. Bodies—twisted, charred, lifeless—lay strewn across the ground, some human, some... not.

Some creatures looked almost human but weren’t. Their bodies were warped, grotesquely elongated, and their skin cracked open in places as if something inside had tried to claw its way out.

Others were even less recognizable—blackened husks, limbs fused at unnatural angles, mouths frozen in silent screams.

Zara forced herself to look away, pressing Leo’s face into her shoulder so he wouldn’t see.

Darnell’s team moved quickly, guiding the survivors into formation, their weapons trained on every shadow, every darkened corridor.

One soldier lingered, kneeling beside a body—his comrade. His hands trembled as he reached out, barely brushing the bloodied insignia on the man’s uniform. His lips moved, whispering something only the dead could hear.

"Keep moving," Darnell ordered, his voice harsh.

The soldier flinched but obeyed, forcing himself to his feet.

Zara glanced at Darnell. His face was unreadable, but the stiffness in his posture betrayed him.

He wasn’t unaffected.

None of them were.

They pushed forward through the ruins, stepping over shattered glass and broken stone.

"These weren’t like this before," one of Darnell’s men muttered, nudging a corpse with his boot.

Zara forced herself to look.

It was one of the new shits they had seen during the attack, not like the normal zombies or the thing that had spoken to her earlier.

"Hey, what is it?"

Zara turned to look at the soldier helping Winter walk through the wreckage.

Winter’s gaze lingered on the body before he exhaled slowly. He said nothing.

She would ask him about it later.

For now, survival came first.

*****

They walked past a clearing on their way to the musterpoint.

Zara wished they hadn’t.

Bodies. Piles of them. Soldiers. Civilians. Some were too burned, too mutilated to be recognized.

Someone screamed.

Zara didn’t know who. Maybe one of the survivors. Maybe several.

The scent of rot and blood was unbearable.

She swallowed bile, forcing herself to keep moving.

Then, amidst the carnage, she saw a familiar face.

Tessa.

Zara stopped.

She hadn’t been close to her, but they had spent enough time together that the sight of her broken body sent a sharp, unexpected pang of grief through her chest.

Tessa had laughed a lot. She had been kind.

Now she was just another corpse in the rubble. It made her worry about Sam and the others. where were they?

"Move," Darnell orders. "We’re almost there."

Zara exhaled, forcing the grief down, forcing herself to keep walking.

No time.

No time for mourning.

*****

The group finally made it to the muster point which was supposed to be a courtyard. Now, it was barely recognizable. The ground was torn apart, deep gouges in the earth marked where explosions had hit. The skeletal remains of outposts and barriers stood in twisted ruin, blackened by fire and blood.

Civilians shuffled forward in tight clusters, some half-carrying the wounded, others whispering prayers under their breath.

Darnell marched ahead, eyes narrowed.

His men had already fanned out, weapons raised, still scanning the shadows for movement.

"Move!" one of the soldiers barked. "Get to the trucks!"

The military vehicles lined up in a ragged convoy. Soldiers worked frantically to load supplies—ammo crates, medical kits, food rations—tossing them into the beds of the trucks while others formed a perimeter. They were armed to the teeth, fingers tight on triggers.

A man stumbled near her, sobbing as he tried to drag someone from the rubble. A woman, her arm twisted unnaturally, her body half-crushed beneath fallen concrete.

"She’s gone," one of Darnell’s soldiers muttered as he passed, but the man didn’t stop.

Zara swallowed hard and turned away.

She looked back at Winter and the soldiers expecting them to help him into one of the trucks in front of them. But instead, they moved away from the main group.

"Hey! Wait!"

Zara hesitated, instinct screaming at her to keep him close.

She moved with them, but Darnell’s hand shot out, stopping her.

"Let them work," he said, voice firm.

Zara jerked her arm away, glaring up at him. "I’m not leaving him."

Darnell’s expression was unreadable, but something in his gaze softened just enough. "He’ll be in the med truck. You’ll see him when he’s stable."

It wasn’t an option. It was an order.

"That doesn’t mean—"

She turned to winter but he didn’t resist. He let them take his weight, his head dipping forward in exhaustion.

"Zara," he murmured, giving her a look that said she should go with it.

Gritting her teeth, Zara forced herself to move.

She missed the look Darnell gave her.

The survivors were guided toward the waiting trucks, climbing into the back, pushing in tight against each other. Some sat on crates, others simply curled into themselves, too drained to do anything but exist.

"Five minutes!" Darnell shouted. "We leave in five!"

Zara accepted someone’s arm and grunted as she climbed up, settling in a corner of the truck. She stroked Leo’s back absentmindedly, her own body stiff, muscles locked in exhaustion.

She risked one last glance toward the wreckage of the courtyard—the bodies, the blood, the still-burning remains of what had once been a safe zone.

That’s when she heard it.

A rush of murmurs from the soliders.

Then a sharp intake of breath.

what now? she thought, tensing.

"General Bale?!"

Zara’s gaze snapped toward the group of soldiers near one of the medical trucks.

A man stood there, barely upright. His uniform was scorched, torn in places. Blood streaked down his face, his left arm clutched tight against his side as though he couldn’t move it.

Shock rippled through the soldiers around him. Some just stared. Others looked like they were seeing a ghost.

Zara turned to the nearest soldier. "Who is he?"

The man barely looked at her, his gaze locked on Bale. "One of the top brass. Went missing during the last mission outside the base. We thought he was dead."

oh, Zara thought. Made sense why they were all shocked.

"General," one of them managed, hesitant, like saying his name might break the illusion.

Bale exhaled sharply, shaking his head. "No time for reunions." His voice was rough, raw like it had been scraped along the edge of a blade. "We need to move."

Darnell gave a sharp nod before turning back to his men. "You heard him! Let’s go!"

The remaining soldiers climbed into the trucks, engines roaring to life one by one.

Zara braced herself as the vehicle lurched forward, the sudden movement jostling everyone inside.

And then the truck rolled forward, carrying them away from the carnage.

Away from the nightmare.

Toward whatever came next.