ALIVE: The Aftermath Chronicles (Book 1)

The biting wind whipped around Sergeant Doyle on the watchtower, carrying the stench of decay and the low, guttural moans of the horde below. His breath plumed in the cold, and his eye remained glued to the scope, scanning the shifting mass of infected. He'd seen worse, but the sheer numbers outside District 4's walls were growing, an unsettling tide against the red-brick fortress.

He passed over them, one by one, a grim tally, until a flash of red hair caught his eye. Sophie. She was kneeling below, a familiar presence, always finding a loophole to visit him during his shift. He knew he should send her away, but her presence was a small, dangerous comfort in this hell.

Then, the heavy bronze bells of the empty church tolled, echoing across the colony. Curfew. He had to get her out of here. He reached for his rifle, the familiar weight a cold assurance against the gnawing dread.

As he turned to address Sophie, a flicker of movement in the darkening distance, just beyond the perimeter, caught his attention. It was too far to make out, too subtle for anyone else to notice. But Doyle's instincts, honed by years of war and apocalypse, screamed danger. A ghost from his past, a face he'd sought in every walking corpse, had just appeared on the horizon.