Shrill growls and echoing throaty cries reached my hearing and I leveled the AK-47 at the crumbling remains of a brick house. It was too dark inside to see through the shattered windows, but something was definitely in there. The continuous noises proved it.

"The fuck is that?" Azrael questioned quietly, stopping beside me with his machine gun at the ready.

Shifting to my other foot for a moment, I glanced around at my squad as they flanked me. I had no idea what was in there, but we needed to pass through either way. "I don't know," I admitted. "Miller, Donte, check it out."

Both of them nodded and I watched as they quietly picked their way around the strewn bricks and through the wide open front door.

Azreal lowered his gun a little as he relaxed beside me. "Do you think it's a wounded revenant?"

I shook my head and listened to the gruesome noises. The darkness inside the house swallowed the shapes of my men and I hoped they would be alright in there. Tilting my head to look over at Azrael, I bit the inside of my lip. "No. It sounds like there are two distinct voices, so—"

"D, you need to come see this," my walkie squawked out with Donte's voice.

I unclipped the walkie from my pocket and brought it to my lips. "On my way."

Stepping over the scattered bricks and other debris, I walked through the doorway and followed the grunts and whimpers with Azrael covering my six. I eased around a corner carefully so I wouldn't stumble over something in the semi-darkness. The noises of the infected filled my ears and I paused in the doorway at the sight before me, causing Azrael to bump into me at my sudden stop.

Only a stone's throw beside Donte and Miller were two revenants getting busy on the floor in the messy kitchen. Their movements were rough and uncoordinated, something a normal human probably wouldn't enjoy in the least.

Tess was right. The males were amped up with the urge to reproduce, and we were unlucky enough to run into a mating pair.

My stomach cramped in disgust and I signalled for the boys to take them out.

Silent bullets flew from the barrels of Miller and Donte's guns with a brief burst of light, riddling the revenants with lead. Blood splattered across the floor and onto the wall like crimson rain. It dripped down the peeling cabinet drawers and onto the floor like the soft splat of raindrops.

The corpses were still and I knew they were finished, but I walked over and nudged them with my gun. There was no movement, no sounds. They were gone. Many would think it was cruel, overkill, but I wanted to make sure those things were dead. I wasn't about to turn my back without knowing they wouldn't attack the moment I did so.

Donte pushed his fingers through his short, woolly curls. "I didn't know those fuckers mated."

"You do now," I quipped, pulling a sweat-dampened lock of hair from my cheek and pushing it behind my ear. "Good thing the females are barren. The few that ain't end up miscarrying."

"Mierda," Ricardo cursed out in a wince while we passed through the house. "This might sound bad, but I'm glad it's like that."

"The only thing I hear is our boss lady sounding like a certain medic friend of ours," Miller teased, the blue in his eyes shining with mischief.

"Oh hush." I snorted, hopping out of the window and into the high grass of the unkempt backyard. My pulse picked up as just ahead, amidst the rubble and destruction of toppled businesses and homes, lay the landing zone we were to secure. It took a good bit of time to get here, and I flicked my wrist to draw my squad's attention to it. "Look at that, boys. We're almost there."

"Record time, too. The helo's ETA is about thirty minutes," Azrael pointed out, a slightly crooked grin peeking out of his scruff.

Donte rubbed the back of his neck, his thick black brows lowering over his earthy brown eyes. "You figure there'll be many to clear out, D?"

I honestly had no answer to that. It could go two ways. One, there would be revenants to take out, whether a lot or a few. Two, there would be none. Despite which one it turned out to be, the helo would probably attract more infected than we could handle.

Keeping my focus on the LZ, I blew out a soft breath through my nose. "Not sure, but we'll find out soon enough. Let's go, boys, we've got an LZ to secure."

When I said "secure," I should've just said "sweep." Despite my expectations, there were no current signs of infected in the area. A few old indications of former revenant inhabitation, like rotted bodies and dispersed bones, were visible in certain areas, but nothing to cause us worry.

I couldn't be happier, especially when I knew the helo would bring with it more revenant action than the whole trek here did. Dodging through abandoned buildings and dispatching a few revenants was one thing, but head-to-head combat with a small horde of the bloodthirsty fuckers was another one entirely.

We patrolled along the LZ, keeping our eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary, but there was nothing. No sightings, no sounds, no anything.

The silence was setting me on edge, and I gripped my AK-47 tightly. What was that phrase again? Ah, right. There was always a calm before a storm. Judging by the unsettling quiet, there was definitely something building out there, and I wasn't so sure "storm" would be a strong enough term for it.

"ETA is three minutes give or take," Azrael spoke through my walkie, and my lungs constricted.

My gaze flitted between the ground and the sky. Half of me tingled in excitement knowing the chopper was incoming, and the other half grew chilled at the unknown.

The steady whomp whomp whomp of the helicopter's propeller blades chopped through the silence like a blade, breaking me from my worries. If three minutes were up already, it sure didn't feel like it.

I lifted my eyes skyward once more, adrenaline coursing through me at the gray blob coming ever-closer toward us. I held my radio up. "Get ready for the party, boys! Helo is inbound!"

The streamlined body of the chopper flew towards us, dipping around a few half-standing skyscrapers on its journey. I lost sight of it once it pivoted around a crumbled bank but, when I regained visual, relief was the last thing slithering through my ribcage.

Seven revenants clung to the helo like leeches, crawling along even though the helo was still moving toward us. A few of them dangled from the bars of the landing gear, while a couple others scurried along the sides.

"Take out those at the bottom!" I yelled out to the squad, taking aim at the revenants myself. After letting loose a few rounds, I jogged forward on the asphalt of the landing strip and fired off some more shots. The thundering of unsuppressed gunfire exploded all around me as my squad tried to take down the infected before they grounded our helo, forgetting to use their silencers in the heat of the moment. Oh well. It was far too late to even think of using them now.

A scream of warning burst through all the commotion and turned my blood to ice.

"Revenants incoming!"

Fuck! If the revenants brought the helo to the ground, there would be no supplies. But if they took us out, there would be no Alpha Chaos and no helo. I knew how important the shipment was, and the safety of the helicopter, but I didn't feel like dying today. Shifting my gun from the sky to the ground, I held my trigger and shot off the head of a male revenant charging toward Ricardo.

The next thing I knew, I was knocked face first onto the unforgiving gravel by a snarling weight latched onto my back, and my AK-47 skittered out of reach. Shoving myself up with my hands, I rolled and grabbed the knife strapped to my thigh as the revenant snapped at my head, shoving the blade back and stabbing into the revenant's eye socket.

It howled in pain and clawed at its face, giving me just enough time to pull out my secondary weapon and release two bullets to its brain. It fell over and I pulled out my knife, spinning on my knees as a squeal of pain caught my attention.

"No!" I screamed as Miller was taken down with a revenant pulling out his throat. Unloading my pistol on the infected, I picked myself up off the ground and grabbed my AK with the heat of grieved rage filling my body.

I ran forward, gunning down anything with yellow eyes as I hunted down the rest of my crew. To my left, Donte and Azrael were grappling with a pair of nasty looking male revenants and I jogged toward them, hopping over downed infected on the way.

Halfway to them, I was thrown to the ground by Ricardo.

"Brace for impact!" He yelled as we scrambled to our feet.

I looked up to see the helo spinning out of control with a revenant hanging out of the busted windshield, whizzing in the air dangerously close to where I stood. Before I could make a single move, it came crashing down like an angry monster, rolling over everything in its path. The screech of metal against concrete and the howls of the revenants rang in my ears before darkness overtook me and drowned out all the noise like a heavy ocean wave.