Clear Water, Hidden Danger

Chapter 10 - The Message

The fog swallowed everything. The truck’s headlights barely reached thirty feet. The road ahead was a graveyard of stalled cars and jack-knifed semis, hazard lights still blinking from days before.

We couldn’t weave through anymore. Every few hundred yards, we had to shove aside vehicles with the weight of the Ford F-350.

Santiago rode shotgun, rifle across his knees, calm as stone. He’d been a hunter before the plant—a man who measured noise the way others measured breath. “Keep the lights low,” he said quietly. “They move when they feel heat.”

Shakers were everywhere.

Some stood in the street, heads tilted toward the sky as if listening. Others shuffled through the fog—pale, slow, silent. Eyes glazed white. Faces slack. Bodies waiting for orders that never came.

We cut the headlights whenever one drifted close. A hand brushed the hood, leaving a smear of blood and grime. Another turned its head, slow and deliberate, then wandered off again.

My knuckles tightened on the wheel. “They don’t see us.”

Mark stared out the window. “They don’t need to. They feel it—the hum.”

Santiago muttered, “Then stop giving it something to feel,” and thumbed the safety on his rifle.

By 4:50 we’d covered barely eighteen miles. Sweat slicked my back despite the cold. The air had that same metallic tang that always came before trouble.

The radio crackled—faint FEMA chatter repeating the same list of names.

Mark thumped the dash. “Still the same loop.”

Mateo’s head snapped up. “Carmen?”

“Still there,” Mark said quietly. “No new ones.”

Then Mark tilted his head, eyes narrowing. “Wait… you hear that?”

I turned the volume down. Nothing but static.

He leaned closer to the window. “Someone’s calling my name.”

“Mark,” I said flatly. “There’s nobody out there.”

He didn’t answer. Just stared into the fog like it was whispering back.

Santiago cut in, voice low. “Eyes front, preacher. The dead don’t need you answering.”

The FEMA base appeared just after five. Chain-link fences sagged. Floodlights flickered on backup power. Smoke curled from a gutted guard post. Bodies lay scattered in the mist.

I killed the engine and let us coast through the gate.

“We don’t know how much time we have,” I said. “Grab what we can before we see the lights flicker.”

Santiago checked the corners first, moving like a shadow, then signaled clear. We split up.

A few Shakers wandered aimlessly through the camp. We dispatched them quickly—Santiago taking heads with the knife, me handling the ones too close to the truck, Mark covering with jittery bursts he didn’t need to fire. Mateo hesitated at every swing. The fog swallowed the sound before it could echo.

The first MCU trailer was empty—lights dead, air thick with rot and diesel. Noise came from the second. Mateo froze. “That’s her.”

We banged on the door for signs of life. Faint shouts answered back. We forced the emergency hatch, and heat rolled out.

About seventeen survivors stared back—tired, pale, hungry. Nine National Guardsmen, four medics, the rest civilians.

Carmen sat near the back, face thin but alive. When she saw Mateo, she gasped and half-crawled into his arms. For a heartbeat, the room felt human again.

“Mateo, is that you?”

“Anyone injured?” I asked.

A female sergeant stepped forward, rifle low. “Two collapsed from dehydration. One didn’t have ear protection during the last pulse and turned into a Berserker. Started with a nosebleed, then eyes went white. We sealed him in the other MCU.”

The word hung there—Berserker.

Mark frowned. “You mean one of the Shakers?”

The sergeant shook her head. “No. Shakers twitch and wander. This one went full violent and bit through a man’s neck before we locked him in. We call them Berserkers.”

Carmen’s voice broke. “No... he’s... my Junior.”

Everything stopped.

“He’s still inside?” Mateo asked, voice already breaking.

She nodded. “He changed. We locked the door before it spread.”

Mark checked his watch. “We should hurry. Is my wife in there?”

No one answered. None of us had time for his ghosts.

“Load everything,” I said. “Two MCUs and the truck—we roll together. Food, fuel, meds, whatever you can grab. Move.”

The yard came alive—boots on metal, crates clattering. Guardsmen pried open MRE pallets. Medics raided supply tents. Carmen gathered antibiotics and saline.

Santiago stayed near the gate, rifle up, muttering range calls under his breath. Each controlled burst echoed like punctuation in the chaos.

Then Sgt. Neal cursed. “Battery’s dead.”

“Which one?”

“The third MCU.”

The third MCU was drained. The second was operational. The only working cell sat in the first unit—the one with Mateo Jr. inside.

I pointed. “Strip the battery.”

Neal and a guardsman yanked the cell from the infected MCU and slammed it into the third. It cost us twelve minutes we didn’t have.

While they worked, the medics and civilians loaded into both trailers, each issued fresh earplugs. Mateo drifted toward the sealed unit. The door was chained, windows fogged from inside.

He climbed the side ladder, hands slick with mist.

“Mateo!” I shouted. “Get down!”

He couldn’t hear me.

He reached the top and peered through the roof hatch.

Something moved inside. A hand slapped the glass—small, pale. His son.

For a second, Mateo Jr.’s eyes flickered—not white, not yet. Recognition? Maybe. Then the twitch started. His body jerked like strings were yanking him from inside. The flicker was gone.

He convulsed hard. Around the yard, the other Zerkers followed suit—the pulse syncing through them like one heartbeat.

“Junior!” Mateo screamed, his voice tearing raw.

I grabbed his arm and dragged him down just as the floodlights began to strobe.

“Now!” I shouted.

We sprinted for the truck. Santiago covered the rear, two-round bursts clean and surgical. Sergeant Neal jumped into the lead MCU and hit the ignition. Engines coughed, then caught. Corporal Wolf climbed into the second.

The ground shook. Floodlights flared. The hum swelled into a roar that felt alive—tearing through metal, through us.

Carmen covered her ears. “It’s stronger!”

My watch read 6:05.

The pulse hit like a wall.

Zerkers convulsed, ramming the fences. Inside the sealed unit, something slammed the walls in rhythm with the hum.

Seventy-five seconds. Then silence.

I blinked at my watch—6:06 and change.

Mark exhaled. “Shorter… but stronger.”

“No,” I said. “Different.”

The difference came fast.

A wave of Zerkers burst from the fog—hundreds, sprinting on all fours, their movements no longer human.

Santiago fired until the mag ran dry, then drew his knife and held the door while I slammed the truck into gear.

One slammed its head into the truck, denting the hood. Another clawed its own face open, screaming soundlessly.

Then they were everywhere.
Hands on the windows.
Bodies slamming metal.
Teeth snapping.
Screams cutting through static.

“Go! Go! Go!” Mateo yelled from the back seat.

I floored it. The MCUs roared behind us, headlights slicing the gray. Bodies bounced off the hood, the windshield, the sides. One clung to the mirror until Santiago kicked the door open and sent it tumbling into the dark.

Shapes lunged out of the fog, silhouettes with no faces, and vanished under our wheels.

Behind us, the noise dimmed—the hum fading but not gone, like it had rooted itself somewhere inside the engines.

Mark stared ahead, whispering to himself. “She’s waiting for me. I heard her.”

“Keep your eyes forward,” I said.

He didn’t blink.

We drove through what felt like the edge of the world, headlights flickering in the mist, engines humming in strange rhythm.

And beneath it all, faint but clear, the pulse was still there—steady, patient, following us home.