Apocalypse Days: I Rule with Foresight and a Powerful Son
Chapter 151

Chapter 151: 151

Winter’s grip tightened around the door handle, his breath steady but his pulse hammering against his ribs. He hesitated—not out of fear, but instinct. They weren’t making a mistake, right?

Behind him, Harlow shifted his weight, tension vibrating through his stance. His rifle was raised, the muzzle barely moving as his sharp eyes flicked between the guards who had tried—and failed—to stop them. The men’s faces were pale, rigid.

With a slow exhale, Winter shoved the door open, gun leading the way.

The room beyond was—

Empty.

Not cleared out. Not ransacked. Just... untouched.

Something was wrong.

Winter had walked into abandoned bases before, places stripped clean by scavengers or nature reclaiming the ruins. But this wasn’t that. The air was too still. It carried no trace of decay, no dust disturbed by hasty retreat or violent struggle. It was sterile—too sterile, like someone had wiped the place clean of any evidence before sealing it away.

The lab was disturbingly empty. No bodies, no overturned desks, no scattered research files, no broken equipment. Nothing to indicate why this place had been locked down so tightly. The sterile white walls gleamed under the dim, flickering lights, clear of the dust and decay that choked the outside world.

Harlow stepped inside cautiously, sweeping his rifle in a slow arc. His voice was low, filled with unease.

"This place was locked up for a reason... so where the hell is everything?"

Containment pods lined the far wall, all standing open, gaping. Some were shattered, jagged cracks running through reinforced glass like fractures. Others bore signs of careful, deliberate dismantling—precision cuts and stripped wiring.

Winter stepped closer, fingers trailing the air just above one of the pods. The steel was cold.

"Something was in here," he muttered. "And someone made sure it’s gone now."

A quiet sound—a shaky inhale—drew his attention back to the soldiers they had overpowered at the entrance. The youngest of them, barely more than a kid, was trembling. His wide eyes darted between the empty pods and his commanding officer.

"It was supposed to still be in here," he whispered.

The kid’s fingers twitched against his rifle strap. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, hard, his breath coming faster now. "It was supposed to still be in here," he whispered again, as if saying it a second time might make it true. He darted a glance at his superior, eyes pleading for confirmation. None came.

Winter narrowed his gaze. "What was supposed to be in here?"

No answer.

Harlow let out a sharp exhale, frustration bleeding into his stance. "You have got to be kidding me."

The guards didn’t relax. If anything, their fear deepened, their grips on their weapons turning white-knuckled.

The young soldier swallowed hard. "You don’t understand. If it’s not in here, then..." His breath shuddered. "Then it’s out there."

Winter didn’t need to hear more.

Harlow, however, was less patient. He gripped the kid’s vest, yanking him forward. "What was in here?"

The kid squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head. "I—I can’t—"

A voice from the back of the room interrupted. One of the soldiers who had been checking the lab’s security logs straightened, his face pale.

"Did you find anything?" Winter asked, jogging over to him.

"No sir!"

"The last security entry shows this place has been locked for weeks." His voice was tight, disbelieving. "No one’s been in or out."

"The whole place is covered in dust too."

Silence.

Winter met Harlow’s gaze.

"That means," Harlow said slowly, "whatever was inside... didn’t get moved."

Winter tightened his grip on his rifle. "It can’t have vanished."

The room felt colder.

Harlow turned toward the control panel near the entrance, fingers flying over the interface, trying to pull up security feeds. But when the screens flickered to life, they showed nothing but garbled static.

For a second, something else flashed between the distortion. A shape. A movement too fast to track.

Winter’s stomach twisted. He stepped closer, eyes narrowing as the static flickered again. There. A frame—half a second, barely anything—but something was in it. Not a person. Something else.

He turned sharply to Harlow. "Rewind that."

"I can’t," Harlow muttered, jabbing at the controls. "Files are corrupted."

Convenient.

Corrupted files. Missing footage.

The guards shifted uneasily.

Winter watched them carefully, his mind racing.

Someone knew.

Someone wanted this place forgotten.

The lead guard finally spoke, his voice a hoarse whisper. "We were told it was in there. We were told—it’s supposed to have something inside—"

A muscle ticked in Harlow’s jaw. "We need to report this."

Winter grabbed his wrist, trying to stop him before he could hit the radio. "Wait."

Too late.

Harlow pressed the comm. "Command, this is Major Harlow. We have a problem. Our team came across a restricted ab while clearing out the area. The lab was sealed and guarded by soldiers who refused to identify themselves, but there’s nothing inside. No bodies. No records. No evidence."

Static.

Winter watched Harlow’s jaw clench as he repeated, "Do you copy?"

More static.

Then, a voice crackled through the channel.

"You were not given orders to open that lab, Major."

Harlow stiffened. "The hell does that mean?" His voice was dangerously low. "Something was in here. Now it’s not. Do you not understand what I’m saying?"

A pause. Then, cold and absolute:

"That is no longer your concern."

Winter stepped forward, gripping the radio. "Like hell it isn’t. We just lost a man because he was about to say something. He didn’t even get the words out before he was executed. You want to explain that?"

Silence.

Then—

"Orders remain the same. Secure the base and return to HQ."

The radio clicked off.

Winter exhaled through his nose. The message was clear. The higher-ups knew. They always did. They might even be the reason this place had been locked down in the first place.

Harlow ran a hand over his face, muttering, "They knew. They fucking knew."

Winter shook his head. "Of course they did. Who do you think gave the order to keep soldiers stationed here? Who do you think put a goddamn sniper on the roof?"

Harlow started pacing, his movements sharp, restless. "Humans always do this," he muttered. "Playing gods. Making things they shouldn’t. Maybe they’re the reason this whole goddamn apocalypse started in the first place."

Winter let him rant, thinking through their next move. The men who had detained the guards would be released soon—he had no doubts about that. The higher-ups would sweep this entire situation under the rug.

Fuck.

If Harlowe hadn’t told the higher ups what they had found, he’s have been able to sneakily relay the information to Bale. He had a feeling that Bale wouldn’t have let this slide.

But there was still one problem—and possibly a solution.

Winter tapped on his comms. "Any update on the sniper?"

"Nothing in this part!"

"No one here, sir!"

Winter straightened as reports flooded in. "Perimeter sweep. Now."

Winter’s mind worked fast. If the sniper had left in a hurry, there would be tracks—disruptions in the dust, a disturbed ladder, something. "Check for footprints or any rappelling gear left behind," he ordered. "If they ran, we need to know which direction."

His team moved.

Minutes later, a scout reported back. "Tracks found leading away from a rooftop vantage point. Someone was here. Left in a hurry."

Harlow’s expression darkened. "Well we know they weren’t aiming at us." He glanced at the dead soldier they had lost earlier. "That shot was meant to silence the truth."

But what was so important that they had to kill the kid?

Winter watched as the body was carried away. His fingers tightened around his gun.

"Then we find the shooter," he said. "And we make him talk."

A sudden radio transmission cut through the tension.

"Sir," a soldier outside reported, voice uneven. "Movement in the ruins. Just saw something—" The voice cut off for a second, static filling the channel. "—Swear I just saw something."

Winter tensed. "Define something."

"I—I don’t know. Just... something."

Static crackled.

"...Not one of us."

What the fuck was wrong with their network? Winter sighed.

"Do not engage. I repeat, do not engage unless you have a clear look at what it is. Keep your eyes open and your ears peeled. Do you copy?"

It took a while for the person on the radio to respond. "...Copy that."

Winter nodded to himself. "Share the information with the others. Our orders were to secure and assess the ruins. Protect yourselves, but don’t draw attention."

"Copy that." The radio clicked off again.

"What is it now?"

Winter turned to see Harlowe standing by the door with a scowl on his face.

"Reports of something in the ruins, could be a civilian who hadn’t been able to evacuate and has been scavenging..." or it could be whatever these fuckers had locked up in here.

He looked back at the containment chambers in the room.

Winter turned sharply toward the entrance of the lab, ready to move.

Then—

A flicker.

A screen nearby flashed on.

That shouldn’t be possible. The power was supposed to be down.

Harlow noticed it too. He stepped closer, cautious.

Static. Then—

A single security feed.

Not from inside the base.

From outside.

Winter’s breath slowed as the grainy footage cleared. A distant section of the ruins appeared on screen, the cracked concrete and rubble bathed in moonlight.

A lone figure stood in the distance.

Unmoving.

Staring directly at the camera.

Winter’s gut screamed. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

The figure doesn’t blink.

Doesn’t move.

Doesn’t breathe.

And then—

The feed cut to black.

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