Weapon System in Zombie Apocalypse

The sun never rose on the fourth morning.

Thick clouds sat heavy over Bataan, casting the entire camp in a dull, gray gloom. Mist rolled through the cracks in the walls, crawling over tents and guard towers. The soldiers blamed humidity, the weather, the nearby forests. No one gave it real thought.

But for the five Penitents, it was the sign.

The air felt still. Expectant.

Inside Tent 3-C, Matias sat on the edge of his cot, watching the canvas flap sway in the breeze. His stump-hand was wrapped in fresh gauze. His real hand gripped the small bone dagger he'd hidden inside a boot sole the night before.

Across from him, Benito lay with one leg stretched out and the other tucked under a blanket. His limp would return tonight, just for show. Sandro was still "sleeping," but his eyes were open, waiting. Rosalyn gently tied the boy's shoes, humming softly, rocking back and forth.

It was time.

No words were exchanged. None were needed.

They rose together, slow and natural, moving like ordinary people. A woman caring for her nephew. A man heading out for work duty. Another limping to the latrines. Nothing out of place.

That was the point.

2000 hours.

General De Vera was in the command post, reviewing supply reports. A convoy was scheduled to leave in forty-eight hours for Balanga. Fuel levels were down. Ammo stocks were holding. Morale was stable.

He didn't know that the hydraulic locks on the north gate had already been disconnected.

He didn't know that three of his trucks wouldn't start in the morning, that Red Dust had seeped into the night shift's soup, or that the radio relay line had been compromised for days.

He didn't know he was about to lose everything.

Private Carlos Lim yawned in the gatehouse.

It was his first week on rotation.

The other guard, Private Alon, sat on an overturned crate, holding a coffee mug like it was the last warm thing on Earth. Neither of them noticed the figures walking slowly up the service corridor behind them.

One guard looked over his shoulder just in time to see Matias.

"Hey—"

Matias drove the bone knife up under the man's chin. The body twitched once, then crumpled. Alon stood up too late.

Benito grabbed him from behind, pulled his head back, and dragged a sharpened file across his throat.

The bodies were dragged behind the crates. Blood soaked into the concrete.

Sandro moved to the override lever. With practiced motion, he disengaged the safety clamps.

Matias cranked the mechanism.

The north gate slid open.

Just two feet.

Enough.

They stepped aside.

And the Chosen walked in.

They came not in hordes—but in packs.

Silent. Twitching. Starving.

The Scourged were in front—half-infected fanatics foaming at the mouth, clothed in bloodied rags and barbed wire. Behind them came the true dead, fresh corpses that had been locked in cages for days. Their skin peeled in places. Some were missing jaws. Others had no eyes.

But they moved with purpose.

They had been led here.

And now… the gates were open.

The first victim was a cook on smoke break. He heard a sound, turned, and saw a woman with no eyes tearing toward him at full speed. Her scream never came. The Scourged tackled him, tore out his throat, and kept running.

Then another.

Then three more.

Then ten.

2050 hours.

Screams.

Gunfire cracked in the southern sector.

Rosalyn grabbed the boy and ran toward the fuel depot—just as planned. She knocked over a lantern on her way. The flame spread fast. Too fast.

Within minutes, the depot was on fire.

Smoke towered upward like a signal to the heavens.

"Contact! CONTACT!"

A soldier screamed into a radio on the west tower. "We have a breach! North side! Infected! Inside the walls—"

Static.

Then silence.

In the command post, alarms blared.

General De Vera stormed out of the briefing room. "Get those gates locked—NOW! All sectors report!"

A lieutenant yelled from behind a console. "We've lost camera feeds in the north sector!"

"Mobilize Sector 4 and 5! Contain the breach!"

He didn't know that Sector 5's patrol team was half-poisoned, coughing, stumbling, barely standing.

Matias sprinted toward the armory, using chaos as his cover. One guard tried to stop him.

"Where the hell are you going?!"

"Gun lockers!" Matias shouted. "Need to grab weapons!"

The soldier nodded and followed.

Big mistake.

Matias led him behind the storage crates.

Crack.

The soldier went down, skull shattered with a steel pipe.

Matias moved on.

The Red Choir was already inside the camp.

Dozens of them had been waiting just outside the fence, dressed in rags, faces veiled. They walked now through the open gate like phantoms. Singing.

"The fire walks, the fire sings… the chosen don't die, they grow wings…"

The sound chilled every bone in the base.

Soldiers stopped firing for a second.

That was enough.

A Scourged broke through a barracks window and tore into the men inside.

Rosalyn made it to the courtyard and set down the boy.

He turned to look up at her, face blank.

"You're free now," she whispered.

He nodded once.

Then walked into the smoke.

Rosalyn didn't follow.

Instead, she ran to the mess hall.

People were hiding there—dozens of civilians and support staff. They waved her in.

She locked the door behind her.

Then she poured kerosene across the floor.

No one realized what she was doing until it was too late.

2105 hours.

General De Vera watched as his camp fell apart.

"Shut the gates!" he yelled into the radio.

"We can't! They've been sabotaged!"

"How many are in?!"

"We don't know! Half the guards are down! They—God—there's more inside! They were already inside!"

De Vera stared at the burning fuel depot.

Then the mess hall went up in flames.

Then he heard it.

That chant.

"The fire walks… the fire sings…"

2110 hours.

The Crimson Dawn didn't arrive in a wave.

They rotted the camp from the inside out.

No battle lines.

No speeches.

Just whispers. Quiet blades. Open gates. And fire.

As the base burned and the dead tore through the last of the outer perimeter, Matias climbed the nearest tower and lit a red flare.

The signal.

High in the hills beyond the forest, Waker Ramon saw it.

And smiled.

Back at the command—De Vera watched the CCTV cameras displaying all parts of the base, fast moving zombies flooding in and his men couldn't cull them as quickly as they entered.

"I think it's time that we inform Overwatch."

"You are right, let's inform them that we are under attack."