Day 19. 10:03 AM.
The house was quiet.
Not peaceful. Not calm.
Just quiet in the way a storm might be quiet one breath before it hits.
Carl sat at the kitchen table, the battered old radio resting between him and a cold mug of instant coffee. The others were still waking up—Ellie in her nest of pillows, Nana inspecting the pantry, Toby presumably arguing with a chicken again.
But the radio…
The radio was whispering something new.
It had started thirty minutes ago. A voice. Not like the looping broadcasts they'd heard before—those had been automated, cracked with age and repetition.
This one was alive.
Ragged. Human.
Real.
"...station echo-seven, repeat, Echo-Seven. Ground forces are two blocks east of Baker Street. Mobile medical confirmed. Civilians in vicinity... hold position. We are clearing zones... repeat, hold..."
Carl leaned forward. Twisted the knob to clear the signal, careful not to make noise.
"...west route compromised. All non-combatants advised to remain in place. Ground sweep will reach perimeter grid by nightfall…"
Two blocks east of Baker Street.
Carl's heart kicked once, hard.
That was three streets away. Maybe four.
It was the closest thing to government contact since the world fell apart.
He didn't realize his fingers were gripping the table until his knuckles whitened.
---
Nana came in first, holding a can of olives and a kitchen knife. She raised an eyebrow at his expression.
"You look like you saw a ghost."
"Radio," Carl said quietly.
She paused. Walked over. Listened.
The voice came through again, steady this time:
"...repeat: this is a ground-forward contact team of the 312th. If you can hear this—stay in place. We're clearing block by block. You are not alone."
Nana said nothing at first.
Then set the olives down.
"Well," she said. "That changes things."
---
They didn't wake Ellie right away.
Toby was already up—shirtless for some reason, wearing a cardboard crown and chasing a chicken with a spoon—but even he stopped when Carl called everyone to the living room.
The four of them sat quietly as Carl repeated what he heard.
The voice.
The message.
The fact that a military ground team was just a few blocks away.
No one interrupted.
Even Toby's hands curled quietly in his lap.
"Is it real?" Ellie finally asked.
Carl didn't answer right away.
"The voice was real. Sounded tired. Like someone who's been walking too long."
"That's not an answer," Nana said.
"No," Carl admitted. "But it's the best one we've had in a long time."
---
The day became longer after that.
The group didn't move far.
Didn't pack bags or scream hallelujah or run for the nearest open road.
Instead, they… watched.
They listened.
Ellie stayed by the radio. Writing the exact phrasing of the broadcast in her notebook every time it looped.
Toby stood at the attic window with binoculars he had previously been using to spy on "Squirrel Prime."
Carl walked the perimeter of the property again and again, tightening wires, reinforcing planks, checking traps they hadn't needed in days.
---
At 2:12 PM, they heard something.
Distant.
Low.
Not the static moan of a zombie.
Not shouting.
But the dull, rolling growl of something mechanical. Tires. Maybe treads.
Carl froze in the yard.
So did Nana. She'd been hanging up laundry she didn't intend to fold.
"That an engine?" she asked.
"Or a generator," Carl murmured.
They stayed there for a moment. Listening.
The sound faded.
But it left a dent in the silence that didn't fade.
---
By 3:00 PM, Ellie spoke again.
"What if they don't find us?"
"Then we wait," Carl said.
"What if waiting means we get left behind?"
Carl didn't speak.
Instead, he walked over to the couch, took the notebook from her hands, and looked at the notes she'd made.
Precise.
Detailed.
"Then we make sure we're not invisible," he said.
He ripped a page from the back and started writing.
---
By 4:00 PM, they'd painted a sheet.
White, with black letters.
Simple words:
> FOUR CIVILIANS. TWO BLOCKS WEST. NOT INFECTED. WAITING.
They nailed it to the roof with strips of wood and garden stakes. It flapped quietly in the wind like a forgotten prayer.
"We're assuming they have drones?" Nana asked.
"Or eyes," Carl replied.
---
The chickens remained uninterested in all of this.
Toby tried to give them tactical names like "General Beakstrike" and "Feather Delta One." None of them responded.
The squirrel reappeared twice—once near the fence post, once inside the ceiling again, staring out through a gap.
Carl noticed its stare.
The squirrel blinked.
Then vanished.
---
Dinner was quiet.
Canned soup. Dry crackers. Water boiled and cooled in reused glass bottles.
Ellie didn't eat much.
Toby was quiet too. Not solemn, just… distant. Like his mind had taken a detour somewhere between hope and fear and refused to settle on either.
Carl cleaned dishes by flashlight.
His hands didn't stop shaking until he finished drying the last spoon.
---
Just after dark, the signal came through again.
Clearer.
Louder.
"Echo-Seven to Zone Grid Niner—team sweep initiated. Visual markers received. Civilian flag sighted."
Carl's heart leapt.
"Repeat—flag sighted. Team advancing to west perimeter. Visual markers confirmed. Stand by."
Carl stepped back from the radio.
Then turned to the rest.
"They saw us."
Ellie inhaled sharply.
Toby just whispered, "Oh."
Nana nodded slowly. "Now comes the waiting."
---
The sound of tires was louder now. Definite. Echoing faintly through the empty streets.
A single, distant bark of a rifle. Sharp. Controlled.
Then nothing again.
Time stretched like plastic wrap.
Thin.
Tense.
Almost ready to snap.
---
"Do we go meet them?" Ellie asked.
"No," Carl said instantly.
His voice was sharper than he intended.
"No. Not yet."
Nana gently placed a hand on his shoulder.
"We don't know who they are."
"They said 312th," Carl muttered. "That's real. That's Fort Grayson. I remember hearing that when I was deployed."
"Yeah," she said. "And I remember playing bingo with a guy who wore a suit and had no teeth. He was real, too. Doesn't mean he was safe."
---
The night crept in.
They sat together by the window.
A lantern flickered softly between them.
Ellie rested her head on Carl's arm.
Toby curled up with a blanket and his favorite bent fork.
Nana sat in silence, fingers tapping a rhythm Carl couldn't place.
Outside, in the dark, the occasional sound of boots.
Metal.
Movement.
Hope.
Or something close to it.
---
Day 19. Night.
They saw the first soldiers through binoculars.
Three shapes, sleek and moving fast, weaving down side streets with discipline. Flashlights cut clean lines through the dark. Gear. Helmets. Uniforms. Not raiders. Not scavengers.
Real.
Carl exhaled slowly as he lowered the binoculars.
"It's them."
Ellie's voice was barely a whisper. "Are they coming?"
"Looks like it."
---
But the sound that followed wasn't footsteps.
It was something… weird.
Like a jingle.
Distant.
Cheerful.
Out of place.
Carl squinted toward the road beyond the trees.
"Is that…?"
Nana stood beside him. "No."
"That sounds familiar..." Ellie muttered with his hand on her chin.
The sound grew louder.
An ice cream truck tune, old and distorted, echoing between buildings like a funeral song with sprinkles.
Then came the moaning.
And the screaming.
And the panic.
---
Binoculars back up. Carl's hands trembled.
Down the block, dozens—maybe hundreds—of figures surged around the corner.
Zombies.
Running.
Faster than usual.
Too many.
And behind them, turning the corner like some apocalypse-themed parade float…
Was an actual ice cream truck.
Half-smashed.
Speakers still blaring.
Covered in stickers and gore.
Its front grill was warped into something resembling a grin.
Zombies trailed behind it like ducklings after a psychotic, frozen treat-themed mama.
---
The soldiers scattered.
Shots rang out. Sharp, controlled bursts of rifle fire.
One soldier disappeared under the horde in seconds.
Another screamed something into a radio before tossing a flare and retreating.
The last one—taller, helmet half-off—looked directly toward Carl's house for a heartbeat too long… then turned and ran with the others.
The truck never stopped.
Neither did the undead.
---
Toby's mouth hung open.
"That truck's their leader."
Ellie leaned into Carl's arm. "I don't know whether to be horrified or impressed."
"You can be both," Nana muttered, loading a revolver that hadn't been touched in three weeks.
---
For a moment, all they could do was watch the chaos spiral.
Flares lit the night in flashes of red and gold.
Zombies flooded intersections, slipping through fences, swarming parked cars.
And over it all… that cursed jingle.
"Do you want a cone, or do you want to scream~"
Carl snapped the radio off.
---
By midnight, the area fell quiet again—but it was the bad kind of quiet.
Carl scanned the radio for any signal. Nothing.
Then, finally:
"...Echo-Seven, tactical fallback initiated. Units compromised. Regrouping to secondary rally. Civilians in Zone Grid Niner: hold position. Ground contact postponed. Repeat—contact postponed. Too hot to hold."
---
They didn't speak for a while.
Toby held onto a flashlight, clicking it off and on without rhythm.
Ellie looked tired. Disappointed. Angry, in a quiet, unfair way.
"They saw us," she said. "And they left."
Carl nodded. "Because they'd die if they didn't."
"I know. But still."
---
They tried to sleep, but none of them really did.
Around 3 AM, a second transmission came through—shorter.
"312th reporting active interference in northern quadrant. Survivors: beware local hostile faction. Identifiers: yellow cloaks. Repeating—lemon insignia. Do not engage. Repeat—do not engage."
Carl didn't need to explain.
The Lemon Cult was back.
And apparently, they had beef with the military too.
---
"We could've warned them," Ellie mumbled.
"Wouldn't have mattered," Nana replied. "Can't warn people who don't believe the world's as weird as it is."
Toby stared at the ceiling. "Why do lemons have a cult?"
Nobody answered.
Nobody could.
---
By morning, the yard was quiet again.
Zombies had retreated—most likely pulled by the sound of that twisted ice cream song echoing somewhere far off in the city.
No soldiers remained.
Just muddy footprints.
Spent shells.
A single walkie-talkie, left near the edge of the street and chewed on by a squirrel.
Carl picked it up. The static felt like a heartbeat.
---
The flag they'd painted still flapped in the wind.
But no one was coming.
Not today.
Maybe not ever.
Carl closed the window.
And started making breakfast.
Because even when the world burned, Ellie still needed to eat.
---
End of Chapter 20 – Radio Silence Breaks
> Hope came. It screamed. It shot. It ran.
The survivors remained—untouched, unchosen, and still breathing.
And sometimes, that was all you could do.
---