Raven stepped forward, the cold concrete beneath her boots giving way to silence so complete it almost pressed on her ears. A partially closed steel door at the end of the warehouse loomed in front of her, barely ajar. A faint red light pulsed from within, flickering like a dying heart monitor.
She reached out and pushed the door open.
It scraped along the floor with a low metallic groan. The red light inside illuminated the room in soft bursts, casting long shadows across the walls and floor. The air was heavy with the sharp scent of metal, propellant, and old oil. And there they were.
Grenades.
Thousands of them.
Raven stepped inside slowly, her gaze sweeping across rows and rows of crates stacked shoulder-high. The flickering light reflected off smooth casings, color-coded by function and origin—Russian fragmentation grenades, American M67s, British L109s, German DM51s, and sleek experimental models she hadn't even seen in active service.
She walked deeper into the room, her fingertips dragging across the tops of the crates. Some were labeled with familiar stencils. Others bore markings that looked new, hand-scrawled in her father's neat, clinical penmanship.
And tucked between them were the ones she recognized instantly. Her own creations.
Small, egg-shaped devices marked with a triangle of red paint. Compact. Streamlined. Lightweight. Built for one purpose: absolute obliteration.
She crouched beside one of the crates and pried the lid open. Inside, nestled in foam, were rows of matte black grenades with no safety pin—just a single pressure trigger.
These didn't just explode. They incinerated.
High-heat thermite combined with directional plasma burst. They vaporized whatever they touched, leaving no blood, no limbs, no infectious scraps to spread disease. Just ash.
She exhaled softly.
"What kind of neglected kid doesn't play with explosives," she muttered.
She had built the prototype in a locked garage at twelve years old, fueled by two things: an obsession with zombie fiction and the knowledge that no one else was coming to save her. She needed something that wouldn't just kill a zombie, but erase the evidence entirely like she previously said a perfectly normal hobby.
And here they were.
Dozens of crates of them.
Beyond her own models, she spotted others—sticky bombs rigged with contact adhesives, shaped charges designed to detonate through blast-resistant walls, and proximity mines wired for infrared detection. There were even boxes of old-fashioned stick dynamite wrapped in wax paper and twine.
She couldn't help the quiet scoff that escaped her.
"Sometimes the classics really are the best."
She stepped past the last stack of explosives and entered the next chamber.
It widened suddenly, as if someone had carved out a showroom. Floodlights on motion sensors kicked on overhead, revealing long rows of heavy artillery.
Bazookas. Missile launchers. Mortars with stacked ammunition crates beside them. As well as armed drones ready to drop missiles on top of unsuspecting zombies from overhead.
She moved slowly, eyes tracking across each weapon, but it was the rear platform that made her stop cold.
Three tanks sat like monsters at rest, their black chassis gleaming under the lights. Each was mounted on a wide circular pedestal, rotating slowly in an endless loop, as if on display.
She approached, her breath catching slightly at the sight.
All three were reinforced with extra-thick armor plating. Their surfaces were coated in non-reflective matte black. Along the top, mounted to the right, was a fully automated .50 caliber machine gun system, paired with a manual variant positioned for internal control.
The main artillery barrel stretched forward like a spear, polished and deadly. Additional weapon hardpoints jutted from reinforced nodes—grenade launchers, anti-personnel mines, and flamethrower ports she hadn't seen since the military's blackout catalogs.
And they weren't just tanks.
They were amphibious.
A glance at the undercarriage revealed flexible tread systems and propeller ports, the same kind of design used by WWII German U-boats modified for land-sea mobility. These beasts could drive straight into a river and emerge from the other side ready to kill.
"Where the hell did you get these..." she murmured, voice low, almost reverent.
No answer came, but it didn't need to.
They were hers now.
She circled them once, the rotating pedestals giving her full view. Inside the cockpits were padded pilot seats, reinforced glass displays, targeting modules, and even climate control systems.
She had never been sentimental. But this—this was close.
Then, without thinking, her head turned to the right.
As if something pulled her gaze.
She saw them.
A long weapons rack that stretched along the wall like an altar. And resting on it...
Sniper rifles.
Long, sleek, matte black. Each one was housed in its own velvet-lined mount. She stepped toward them slowly, hands lowering to her sides like a gunslinger entering a sacred temple.
Fifty caliber sniper rifles. Barrett M107s. McMillan TAC-50s. CheyTac M200s. All modified. All beautiful.
Her pupils dilated slightly as she stepped closer.
These weren't meant for zombies.
No, these were for something far worse.
"People," she whispered.
The true enemy. The worst thing in any apocalypse. Not the monsters. Not the infected. Not the environment.
It was always people.
The greedy. The violent. The desperate.
She knew what they saw when they looked at her—eighteen, alone, beautiful. The kind of girl that got traded for a half-rotten box of hamburger assister or a dry pack of boxed noodles with no meat included.
The kind of girl you used.
Raven reached out and touched the cold metal of the nearest rifle. Her jaw set, eyes narrowing.
Not anymore.
Now, she was the one watching from the distance. The one with the scope. The trigger. The power.
And if anyone thought they could come for her again?
She'd be waiting.
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