Chapter 200: Unknown Threat

I was about to take another bite of the fried potato, the piece looking perfectly golden and crisp, when a sound rang out from somewhere outside.

A single, sharp crack that cut through the afternoon air.

A gunshot.

We all stiffened simultaneously, the comfortable moment shattering in an instant. My eyes widened, every muscle in my body tensing as I shoved my chair back and stood up immediately, the wooden legs scraping harshly against the tiles.

Carmen had frozen mid-motion, fork still in hand, her expression shifting from relaxed to terrified in the space of a heartbeat. Shannon had gone completely still, her fork halfway to her mouth, eyes wide with shock .

Another gunshot followed, then another—three in quick succession, the sound coming from somewhere to the north. My ears caught shouts as well, distant but clear enough to carry the edge of panic .

"Stay here," I said sharply, already moving toward the gate that led from the backyard to the street. "Lock the door behind me just in case."

"Ryan, wait—" Carmen started, but I was already moving.

I slipped through the gate and into the alley beyond, my senses hyper-alert. The afternoon sun cast long shadows between buildings, creating countless places where threats could hide.

I closed my eyes for just a heartbeat and focused, letting the enhanced senes processing that came with the virus isolate and amplify the relevant sounds. The gunshot had been sharp, clear, but my senses told me it wasn’t close—not immediate danger to Carmen’s house or to me. It had originated from the north, toward the main barricade where the Boardwalk community posted their guards.

If it was Callighan’s people, I knew I had no formal reason to intervene. I wasn’t part of their community, wasn’t sworn to their defense. But a gunshot remained a gunshot, and there was always that slim, terrible chance that Sydney and the others had arrived looking for us and gotten caught in something. Moreover, Clara was back at the hotel, vulnerable and injured. If this was Callighan’s group launching an attack, she could be in danger.

I immediately kicked off the ground and rushed ahead at full speed. I heard shouts rising behind me—people in the houses and streets reacting to the gunfire, voices panicked and confused, some calling for weapons, others screaming for family members .

"Stay back! Get back everyone!" I spotted Rico from the corner of my eye as I passed an intersection. He was directing the non-fighters—older people, children—to retreat deeper into the settlement, toward the hotel or houses. Meanwhile, those who could fight were gathering weapons, checking rifles, drawing pistols.

As expected, this wasn’t an accident.

They wouldn’t waste ammunition on ordinary infected unless it was absolutely necessary—like facing an enhanced Infected or a human threat. I don’t see anyone using bullets against ordinary Infected unles they were truly in danger.

It didn’t take long for me to reach the barricade, my speed cutting the distance to a fraction of what it would have been for anyone else. I arrived to find a small gathering already there—guards who’d been on watch, and at the center, Marlon and Molly, both looking toward something beyond the barricade with expressions of concern .

"What’s happening?" I asked as I approached.

Marlon turned his gaze toward me, those cold, assessing eyes taking in my presence without surprise.

"We spotted a Hybrid Infected," he said.

"Hybrid?" I repeated,.

Wait—don’t tell me it’s an enhanced infected? One of the variants the Starakians engineered?

"I don’t think he’ll understand if you explain it like that, Marlon," Molly said. "We call them mutants because they’re different from ordinary infected. The virus seems to have made them stronger, made them evolve. They’re abnormally powerful, faster, sometimes smarter. We don’t know why some infected turn into these hybrids while most stay as shamblers, but they’re rare and dangerous."

"I know," I said, surprising them both. "I’ve met some of them too."

"Really?" Molly asked, genuine surprise coloring her voice. "You’ve encountered some of them monsters before?"

I nodded but I was the one surprised they had met enhanced infected. Weren’t enhanced infected—or hybrids, as they called them—modified directly by Starakians? In that case, had a Starakian intervened here before we arrived? For what reasons?

In Jackson Township, they’d used enhanced infected—and their technologies: Fire Spitters, Frost Walker, Screamer—to test Wanda and also because I was there, because the Starakians wanted her and were willing to burn the town to the ground to get her. But here, in Atlantic City, was there something else that interested them?

No. I shook my head inwardly, dismissing the paranoid spiral. It could simply be that enhanced infected existed already all around the world, scattered remnants of the initial outbreak, not necessarily directed by active Starakian intervention. The virus itself might have built-in variability that expressed under certain conditions.

But it didn’t seem like this was their first encounter with one, based on what they were saying.

"How many of them have you met?" I asked.

"This is the third one we’ve encountered in Atlantic City," Molly said. "The first gave us quite a fright—we’d never seen anything like it. But we managed to shoot it down eventually, though it took more bullets than a normal infected. The second one, we didn’t hesitate. Used as much ammunition as necessary, brought it down fast."

And they were right. Bullets were the most lethal weapons against enhanced infected. I knew that from painful personal experience, having faced them without firearms and barely surviving each encounter through sheer luck and enhanced physical capabilities .

"Something happened?" I asked Molly, noticing the grave expressions on the faces around us, especially Marlon’s.

"Well..." She trailed off, glancing behind her toward a small cluster of people gathered near one of the guard positions.

Someone was injured, I realized. A man sat on an overturned crate, another person wrapping a bandage around his upper arm. Even from a distance, I could see the dark stain of blood soaking through the cloth. As I looked closer, I recognized him—Theo, the guard who’d been on duty at the barricade last night, the one who’d let us in and then rushed to get Doctor Shawn .

"I am telling you that thing was a freaking monster!" Theo was saying loudly. "I nearly pissed myself when it turned and looked right at me!"

"Infected are monsters, dumbass," Jake responded with a groan. "That’s kind of the definition."

"Fuck off!" Theo shot back with a glare. "I got the scare of my life and I can make a damn distinction between a zombie and whatever the hell that was!"

"Calm down, Theo," Marlon spoke. "Explain calmly what you saw. Start from the beginning."

"As I’m saying," Theo continued, his voice still shaky but more controlled now under Marlon’s gaze, "I saw that big infected first from afar, near the edge of our patrol zone. It was moving differently, you know? So I immediately took my gun and moved to intercept, thinking I could take it down before it got close to the perimeter."

"Wow, trying to play the hero so you can boast to Maribel or Carmen later, I bet?" One of the other men snorted, earning a few chuckles from the gathered fighters .

"Can you guys shut up and let him talk?" Marlon said coldly, his tone dropping several degrees. The laughter died instantly, and everyone fell silent, letting Theo continue his account without further interruptions.

Theo took a deep breath, visibly trying to steady himself. "I saw that Hybrid Infected—"

"Didn’t you just say it wasn’t a regular infected?" Jake interrupted again, unable to help himself.

"Fucking hear me out first!" Theo glared at Jake, his hands were trembling slightly—whether from adrenaline crash or lingering fear, I couldn’t tell. "I saw that big infected from afar and immediately took my gun to chase after it, thinking I could handle it alone. I mean—it had to be dealt with, right? These monsters, we can’t just let them roam around near our perimeter, picking us off whenever they feel like it!"

"Alright," Molly said. "So you went after it alone, and then what? It scraped your arm and you came running back? Is that the whole story?"

"No..." Theo said, He gulped audibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed hard against what looked like rising bile. His expression shifted completely from defensive anger to naked, unfiltered fright. "I saw something else. Something moving fast. Like it wasn’t human at all. It was dark, shadowy almost, and it moved in ways that didn’t make sense—jerky one second, fluid the next. And it nearly tore my fucking arm clean off!"

He gestured to his bandaged limb, and I could see now that the wrapping was already soaked through with blood in several places, the injury worse than it had initially appeared .

"I was scared shitless, okay?" He continued. "I admit it. I’ve been doing perimeter duty for two months now. I’ve seen infected up close. I’ve killed them. I’ve watched them tear people apart. But this... this was different. This was worse. I’ve never been that terrified in my entire life."

"Yet you’re still alive and standing here," Jake pointed out. "How’d you manage that if this thing was so dangerous?"

"I just ran!" Theo said, his voice breaking slightly. "I fired off three rounds blindly behind me and then I just fucking ran as fast as I could. I don’t know how I got away. I don’t know why it didn’t follow me all the way back. Maybe the gunshots scared it off. Maybe it got distracted. Maybe I just got lucky. But I made it back, barely."

"Could it have been another type of infected?" Molly asked, glancing at Marlon with a meaningful look. "Maybe one we haven’t encountered before? A new variant?"

"Likely," Marlon said. "The virus seems to produce variants at random intervals."

But I was silent, my thoughts racing in a completely different direction from their speculation.

It wasn’t an infected. At least, not in the way they understood the term. Something moving that fast, in the dark, with that kind of frightening intelligence and physical capability? That sounded like Starakian technology—maybe another modified creature like the Frost Walkers or Fire Spitters, or possibly something even newer that they’d deployed specifically for this area .

I felt my thoughts numbing.

Did they follow us here as I’d expected? Were the Starakians tracking our group specifically, or was this just random deployment of their bioweapons across multiple cities? If they were here, were they after Wanda again? After me? Or was there something else in Atlantic City that interested them.

"What happened here?" Maribel’s voice cut through my spiraling thoughts. She’d arrived at a run, her wooden lance still in hand.

Molly immediately began explaining the situation to her—Theo’s encounter, the strange infected, the injury—but I had already stopped listening to their conversation. My attention had narrowed to a single point of focus.

If the Starakians had followed us here, if they were deploying enhanced bioweapons in Atlantic City specifically because my group was present, then I couldn’t ignore it. I couldn’t let these people face something they didn’t understand and couldn’t possibly fight effectively. And more pragmatically, I needed to see what we were dealing with and get rid of it before Atlantic City became a new Jackson Township.

I had to get a look at whatever Theo had encountered. I couldn’t just stand here debating and theorizing while that thing was still out there.

Without waiting for permission or explanation, without bothering to negotiate or announce my intentions, I rushed forward.

"Hey!" Molly’s voice called out immediately. "Where the hell do you think you’re—"

Before she could finish the sentence, before anyone could physically move to stop me, I reached the barricade. My hand shot up to grip the top edge of the metal barrier, fingers finding purchase on the welded seam. I launched myself upward in a single fluid motion, using arm strength and momentum to vault over the obstacle.