And So the Crowd Went Wild...

The Beverly Hills air smelled like ash and gasoline, which wasn’t that far off from how it normally smelled.

Heat rippled off the pavement like it had been microwaved for too long, warping the edges of the boulevard where a crumpled Cybertruck chassis still smoked in the sun. Red bougainvillea spilled over the walls of mansions and chateaus, wilted and stained with blood and soot. The sky overhead was bleached pale blue with a few fluffy clouds scattered across—too bright, too clean—while below, the world had curdled.

Alex stood barefoot on hot concrete, ears twitching, eyes scanning. The wind whistled through the palm trees, rustling their fronds with a sound like dry paper. Somewhere far off, something groaned. Loud, like a hungry animal.

“Hhhrrrraaaaaaaeeeeekkkk!”

The gate to the tigress’s Los Angeles home hung ajar, one side caved in, twisted around the frame of her neighbor’s Porsche 911 like a pretzel. That smug banana-yellow paint job was now chipped, smeared red, and riddled with dents.

Her neighbor was still inside.

A bulldog—juiced to hell with steroid bulk, neck thicker than his skull—slumped behind the wheel. He was impaled through the chest by two twisted iron bars from the gate, spikes punched clean through his designer tank top. His sunglasses were still somehow on, cracked, reflecting the sun in jagged flares. Blood soaked the seats, congealed to molasses.

His jaw twitched.

A slow, low gurgle vibrated in his throat, thick with blood that was almost black.

“Hhhrraaaaah…”

Alex flinched a little—but she didn’t look away. Of course he’d survived the initial outbreak just long enough to turn. The bastard probably thought his dumb, overpriced supplements could outlift the apocalypse. She’d always said crypto scammers were the cockroaches of LA.

His cloudy eyes rolled beneath the cracked sunglasses. His head jerked slightly. The iron spikes through his chest groaned.

Alex froze.

For a terrifying moment, it looked like he might lurch forward. Like his bulk might tear free from the metal and bring the gate down with him.

Then nothing. Just that wet gurgle, like a garbage disposal chewing on raw meat.

She swallowed hard, breath shallow, and stepped around the wreck.

"Serves you right, dick," she muttered, eyes never leaving him until the car was behind her.

Her pulse was already hammering. The world felt like it was holding its breath, waiting for her to screw up. She slipped through the gate sideways, careful not to scrape her arm on the jagged edges. Her tail snagged briefly, and she tugged it loose with a grunt. Every sound—the clink of metal, the rustle of flora—sounded amplified.

Past the gate, the driveway stretched ahead in bright, sun-bleached terracotta. Her white Ferrari Portofino Bianco Avus convertible was missing from its usual place under the carport canopy.

Alex blinked.

She’d parked it there. Before the show. She remembered. Top down. Birkin bag in the passenger seat.

Now it was gone.

For a second, a spark of hope bloomed in her chest—just a flicker.

Maybe the staff had taken it. Maybe Rosa and Melvin had made a run for it once things got bad. Maybe they were okay.

But hope made her hesitate. And hesitation made her vulnerable.

The breeze picked up, fluttering ivy from the second-floor balcony. She raised her axe slightly, her eyes scanning every window, every balcony railing. Any one of them could hold something waiting to drop down on her.

She adjusted the grip on the axe in her hand—red steel, chipped at the edge. Still sticky from the last encounter. Her knuckles were raw beneath the dried blood. Fur matted. Sunlight caught on the old stains, turning them rusty brown.

Her mansion loomed ahead, perched on the hillside like some kind of smug endangered animal. Floor-to-ceiling windows shattered in spiderweb fractures. The stucco and wood facade was spattered with gore in violent arcs, like some dumb environmental activist had flung buckets of clumpy paint with misguided rage. Glass littered the walkway. The hedges were torn open, claw marks raking across the stone planters.

Every step up the walkway felt wrong. Exposed. She could hear her own heartbeat louder than her footfalls.

Her paws crunched over a broken security keypad, now blackened and split like a blister. The tiger statue by the fountain had toppled in the chaos—its marble head lay in a rosebush, red petals clinging to its mouth like blood. She hesitated, scanning the water. The fountain was half-full, stained red-brown. Something floated there. She didn’t look too closely.

The front door was still half-closed. She reached for the handle out of habit, but stopped just short of touching it. Her eyes scanned the frame, the shadows in the crack. Her breath slowed.

What if something or someone was pressed against the other side? Listening? Waiting?

She adjusted her grip on the axe, heart hammering in her chest, and nudged the door with her elbow. It groaned open on its hinges—slow, grating, and so god damn loud.

‘Crreeeeeeaaaaaaaaak.’

Nothing lunged.

But the inside of Alex’s home held its own kind of terror.

The scent hit her immediately—mildew and the sickly-sweet funk of old blood. Beneath it all was something worse. Something sour. Something that didn’t belong.

She lingered in the doorway, listening. Nothing but silence. And silence was never safe.

Finally, she stepped inside.

The interior was unmistakably hers—sleek modern architecture softened by rich textures, warmer tones, and vibrant touches. The entryway opened into a sweeping atrium with a floating staircase of glass and steel, curving up toward the second floor like a sculpture. A mixture of marble and polished concrete floors reflected the pale natural light pouring through floor-to-ceiling windows. Built-in planters of succulents and neon bromeliads lined the baseboards, some now trampled and leaking soil. Blood had seeped into the cracks.

Sunlight filtered in through the skylight, catching motes of dust in the air like glitter. Her paw pads squished on the marble floor, dulled by streaks of dried blood and smudged dirt. The sound echoed too loudly, bouncing back at her.

Her once-pristine home—designed by the best in West Hollywood—looked like it had hosted a war. Furniture overturned. Mirrors cracked. A trail of footprints—bare, bloodied—led toward the grand staircase.

She knew this house. She had built it. Every tile, every alcove, every light fixture had been personally chosen.

Now it felt alien.

A hollow silence pressed in on her ears. Not peace—vacancy. As if the house was waiting to exhale.

Then there was movement.

Upstairs. A shadow passed briefly across the second-floor landing.

Alex froze mid-step. Her tail went stiff and fluffed up. The axe felt heavier in her grip.

Then it came. A groan.

Heavy. Wet. Guttural.

“Hrrrrruuuaaaaaaaakkkk!”

They were here too.

---

One Week Earlier.

Kia Forum. Backstage. Dressing Room C 7:45 PM.

The backstage corridors of the Kia Forum pulsed like it was alive. Cables coiled in veins along the floor, overhead lights flickering in a rhythm too irregular to be comforting. The air was thick with hairspray, stage fog, and the cloying scent of energy drinks. Crew voices echoed down long halls, clipped and quiet, like murmured prayers hoping nothing would go wrong.

Inside Alex Marx the Spot’s dressing room, the noise softened. Velvet-lined walls, designer furniture, chilled air. Everything muted, curated, calm. But it wasn’t calm, not really. Not under the surface.

Alex sat in front of her vanity mirror, legs crossed, tail swaying lazily behind her. Her green eyes glowed sharp under the makeup lights, reflecting her own gaze back at her. Her fur—orange with inky black stripes—looked freshly brushed, every line crisp, even under the black mesh and neon yellow accents of her bodysuit. The garment clung to her curves, tailored for mobility and flash. Not a hair out of place. Not a doubt in her chest. A robe clung loosely to her shoulders to catch any excess sweat that came out before showtime.

She wasn’t breathing heavily. Her heart rate didn’t flutter. But she could feel it. That strange stillness before the storm. That little smidge of stage fright that she could never shake off, no matter how many times she had done this exact show already.

Her in-ears crackled. “Alex, you copy?”

Bobby, her lead sound engineer.

She didn’t look away from the mirror. “Yes, Bobby. What is it?”

“Some interference on your secondary wireless. Think the receivers are picking up bleed from merch walkies. Mains are clean, but just in case.”

“You’ve got eight minutes to make it disappear.”

“I’m sprinting. Promise.”

The channel clicked off.

From the corner, Logan Hall, Alex’s manager, turned a page on her tablet without looking up. The raccoon’s posture was stiff as ever—one leg crossed, back straight, tailored navy blazer perfectly creased. Her fur was a brushed charcoal gray with cream markings and deeper rings banding her voluminous tail, currently curled around her ankles.

“You’re unusually polite tonight,” the raccoon said dryly, stylus tapping her screen.

“That was me being polite?” Alex replied, still not smiling.

Logan looked up briefly, eyes a piercing blue behind her small rectangular glasses. “I’ve seen you throw an earpiece.”

Alex shrugged. “Maybe I’m getting old.”

“You’re twenty-six.”

“Exactly.”

The door creaked as Logan’s loyal little assistant boy Riley slipped in, nearly tripping over a cord bundle. The spotted hyena’s fur was a mix of sandy tan and chocolate speckles, and his tie was already loose. He had three lanyards around his neck, one of which was backwards, and he was sweating just from walking across the corridor.

“I, uh—hi, Ms. Marx. I mean, Alex. Sorry, the hydration packs you usually like weren’t in the truck, so I grabbed the berry ones instead. Not citrus, but they’re close, and—”

“It’s fine,” Alex cut in, flicking her ears toward him but keeping her gaze on the mirror. “I’m not gonna drop dead just because I didn’t get my favorite flavor.”

Riley let out a soft, relieved laugh and nearly dropped the tablet he was holding.

“You can relax,” she added. “I’m not going to yell unless you forget my mic. Or spill something.”

“I—I won’t!” he stammered.

“She’s lying,” Logan said without looking up. “She’ll yell.”

“I like to keep morale high.” The tigress said with a soft smile, finally.

The low thump of bass vibrated up through the floor—subwoofers warming up, ghost notes testing the stadium’s capacity.

“You hear that?” Alex asked.

“The mix?” Logan said.

“No. Them.”

The pop star rose from her seat, fluid and precise, crossing the room to a wall monitor where the live feed showed the stadium crowd. A glittering mass of bodies, color-shifting under lights, vibrating like a single organism. Someone had made a giant cardboard cutout of her face and was dancing with it.

“They’re already lit off nothing,” she said. “We haven’t even done the teaser sting.”

“They’re feral,” Logan agreed. “You trained them well.”

Alex tilted her head. “Think I should just go out there and just stand still?”

“They’d lose their minds. But don’t. You standing still costs us money.”

“Spoken like a true manager.”

“I am your manager.” Logan scoffed.

Riley, still hovering by the mini-fridge, nervously offered Alex a bottle of VOSS water that he mixed a hydration pack into, “You’re trending under six tags. One of them’s—uh—‘#MarxMeDaddy.’ Again.”

Alex blinked, took the bottle of water, and took a sip before she rolled her eyes at him. “Again? I thought we buried that one.”

“It came back,” he said, cheeks flushing. “Like… hard.”

Logan arched an eyebrow. “The internet is never done being horny. You should know this by now.”

Alex groaned, rubbing her temples. “But that hashtag is so cringey.”

Her in-ears buzzed: “Ten-minutes, Miss Marx.”

Logan moved on her feet; tablet tucked under one arm. “Setlist is finalized. Pyro cues have a 0.2-second delay—don’t over-adjust for it. Your right-stage camera is handheld tonight, operator name’s Gino, he’s jumpy, don’t scare him.”

“It’s funny when they fall off stage, though,” Alex muttered.

“It’s not funny when our staff insurance premiums go up because of it.” The raccoon sighed. “And the catwalk floor is still a bit wet from the rehearsal fog burst. Don’t sprint it like last time.”

“I won’t have to sprint if,” Alex paused, clicking the small button on her ear piece that let her talk to Bobby again, “If the sound timings are airtight, Bobby.”

Logan gave her a long look. “They are airtight. Bobby’s good, you know that.”

Alex peeled off her robe and passed it wordlessly to Riley, who fumbled it like it was hot glass. Underneath, her bodysuit caught the warm lights and sent reflections skipping across the walls like sparks.

“How’s your head?” Logan asked quietly.

Alex adjusted her in-ears. “Sharp.”

“Good. Just another show for the books.”

“Good pep talk, mom.”

They looked at each other. Just for a second. It didn’t need more than that.

Riley spoke again, trying to sound casual. “You, um, want me to bring the backup mic to stage right just in case?”

Alex turned and smiled sweetly. “Yes, please. Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.”

“Okay.” The hyena backed up a step.

The tigress’s in-ears clicked again: “House is full. Crowd’s hot. Alex, you’re clear to line-up.”

She turned to the door. Everything behind her went silent. Like the room knew it wasn’t part of her anymore.

Logan’s voice followed: “Go get em’, tiger.”

Alex didn’t turn around.

“I always do!”

The door opened.

The hallway was lit in magenta and blue, cables lining the walls, crew members parting like waves. She walked, tall and sure despite her height, long tail flicking behind her in rhythm with the bass.

The tigress stopped right behind the main curtains that led onto stage and waited for the teaser music to play. As it played, twenty-thousand people screamed.

After that, the lights in the entire stadium shut off.

Alex Marx the Spot stepped into the void.

And so the crowd went wild...

---

The smell hit first.

Not strong—faint. Fainter than it had any right to be. Like old salsa left in a car parked in the sun, mixed with the sharp sting of sweat-soaked fabric and something meatier underneath. You could miss it if you weren’t paying attention. But once it caught you, it stuck in the back of your throat.

Kia Forum. Concessions Stands. South Concourse. 7:48 PM.

Devon, a black panther, leaned against the nacho warmer, visor crooked, the fur around his neck damp with fryer grease. His name tag was peeling at the edges. “DEVØN” was written in thick black marker, the Ø something he added for style. His phone buzzed in his pocket, but he didn’t check it. He was two gummies deep—his cousin's homemade stuff from Long Beach—and everything felt like it had a soft filter over it.

The lights overhead flickered. Not much. Just a half-second stutter like a blink. Fluorescents trying to hold themselves together.

A group of teens stood at the counter, loudly arguing over whether the chili was vegan. Devon said it was. It wasn’t. One of them had a sequined jacket with Alex Marx the Spot’s face airbrushed across the back. Someone else had light-up ears that pulsed with the stadium’s bass.

Devon moved on autopilot. Scoop chips. Slap cheese. Offer napkins. Smile that soft-edged weed smile that made everything seem just barely funny.

Then the line shifted.

He didn’t notice right away. One second he was handing over a soda. The next, there was someone standing too close. Closer than people stood in lines unless they were trying to start a fight.

“Uh… you good, man?”

The guy didn’t answer.

He was tall. A grey wolf. Thick build, fur damp around his muzzle like he’d been running. He wore a bootleg Alex Marx the Spot shirt—washed out and misaligned, like someone had printed it using a desktop scanner and hope. There was something in his hand. Devon thought it was a wristband at first, but it was his own wrist. Gripped so tight the claws dug into the skin.

His eyes were wrong. A little too red. A little too wild. But also unfocused. Pale and fogged over like car windows after too many bodies in the backseat.

“Sir? Are you okay?” Devon asked, voice rising over the hum of the hotdog roller.

No response. The guy’s chest heaved once, shallow and fast. His tongue pushed against the inside of his cheek like something was crawling underneath it.

Devon took a step back. He didn’t know why. Instinct.

A security guard leaned against a railing nearby. Older cheetah. Big shoulders, his fastest days were long behind him. He glanced up, mildly interested, but not alarmed.

Then the wolf twitched.

It wasn’t a natural movement. It was like something snapped inside him and rewired his limbs on the fly. He jerked forward—no warning, no sound—and slammed into the counter, knocking over a tray of napkins and a stack of paper plates.

“Whoa, whoa! Dude! Chill!” Devon said, stumbling back.

That’s when the smell hit. Fresh blood.

The wolf looked up.

His lips peeled back, and his gums were black.

“Hey!” the security guard finally barked, pushing off the wall.

Too late.

The wolf lunged.

His jaws hit Devon’s neck like a sprung bear trap. Teeth punched through fur, skin, then into the soft, wet meat underneath. Blood gushed in a hot, arterial spray, splattering the wolf’s chin. The sound that came from him wasn’t a scream—no—it was a garbled choke, like someone trying to talk underwater.

The concession’s stand worker dropped like dead weight, legs folding beneath him. A thick spray of blood arced with him, painting the counter, pooling beneath the nacho machine in wide, sticky swirls. The wolf fell with him, still chewing, mouth working in convulsions. The hot pot of nacho cheese hit the floor, spilling and mixing in a hot yellow smear with the red that flowed.

Then the screaming started.

“OH MY FUCKING GOD!!!!”

One of the teens at the front of the line stumbled back, phone already up, capturing it. Her friends were shouting. One ran. One froze. Another tried to grab her but was shoved into a bench by another panicked runner. Most people stood by watching, confused, the herd mentality instinct to run hadn’t quite kicked in yet.

The security guard charged in, fumbling for his gun, yelling for backup into a radio clipped to his collar.

This is security team A on concessions, I need some backup here, one of the fans attacked a stand worker.”

Then another figure moved through the confused crowd.

A mouse—petite. Her pink hoodie was soaked through at the collar. She had a gash across her face, but her expression was blank. Empty. Her teeth chattered as she walked. Not from cold.

She grabbed the guard by the arm. Bit.

“AAAAAARGH!!!! FUCK!!!”

The concourse broke into panic.

People shoved. Cursed. Dropped their drinks and bolted. The screams that rose weren’t excited or confused—it was full-on animal panic. The kind of scream people make when something is wrong in a way their brains haven’t even caught up to yet.

“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!”

Back in the arena bowl, the music roared on. Twenty thousand voices were already screaming — for the music, for the moment, for Alex — so the distant cries from the concourse didn’t even register. They were swallowed in the chaos, mistaken for joy, for noise, for hype.

No one noticed.

The infection was loose.

And the Forum was dancing in the dark.

---

Kia Forum. Main Stage. 8:00 PM.

It started perfectly.

The house dropped into darkness, and the energy of twenty thousand fans condensed into one shared inhale. Then the bassline dropped — deep, seismic, like a war drum echoing off steel. Lasers cut upward through fog. A countdown blazed on the screen.

10… 9… 8… 7… 6…

Alex took deep breaths into her microphone. The crowd screamed louder as they heard it.

5... 4... 3... 2...

1…

BAM.

The stage exploded in light.

Alex Marx the Spot emerged from a column of smoke at center stage like a god ascending, flanked by flame jets and a wall of moving LEDs. Her bodysuit shimmered, golden accents catching the strobes, casting broken light across her striped arms. Her mane of dark brown hair flowed behind her as she struck her first pose — one paw raised, claws gleaming, green eyes blazing, smile so charming spread across her lips.

The crowd screamed so loud it hurt.

Her dancers flanked her — six in total, dressed in jagged blacks and yellow to echo her palette. They moved like a synchronized weapon, bodies slicing through the space in perfect tandem with the music, every pivot and leap cut with surgical precision.

“Los Angeles!” she shouted into the mic, her voice sharp as a blade, “Are you… Ready… To make your Marx?”

The first track, “Zombie Boy”, hit like thunder. A mash of industrial synth and heavy beats, fused to her voice — powerful, sensual, untouchable.

“We’re about to be up all night!”

Alex prowled the stage.

“We’re about to be up all night!”

She spun. Slid. Kicked a leg high and dropped into a crouch, tail whipping behind her. She struck out with her arms in smooth and flowy gestures, claws flashing in the strobes like blades. Her dancers orbited her, spinning like planets caught in her gravity. Smoke canisters hissed in thick jets at the corners of the catwalk, bursts of light firing with each beat drop.

“We’re about to be up all night — wakin’ up a zombie,” she sang, her voice carrying across the arena like a whip crack. “So put your paws all over me, you zombieboy!”

The words made the fans shriek, claws and hands raised in worship. Alex tossed her hair, prowling to the edge of the catwalk, letting the front row almost touch her boots before she spun away with a sly grin.

Every lyric she sang was perfect.

She was locked in, high on adrenaline and electricity, drinking in every scream like champagne. Getting fed fame and admiration straight into her veins with an IV.

Song two, “Love Drug”, hit even harder — the tempo faster, the movements sharper, a frenzied pace that demanded blood and sweat. The dancers fell into a diamond wedge behind her, bodies snapping into angles that broke apart like shattered glass on the downbeat. They rushed forward, scattering into solos that matched each chorus drop.

“Kiss on your lips, it’s a chemical fire,” Alex belted, striding across the catwalk as strobes pulsed white-hot. She grabbed a dancer, spun him into a flip. “You’ll chase my touch like a burning desire!”

Her choreography was relentless: dropping into splits, snapping back up, thrusting into sharp, jagged motions that made the entire arena feel like it was vibrating.

“I could be your love drug — overdose tonight.” she screamed as the chorus hit, flame cannons bursting in sync. “You don’t need no Narcan baby, drown in my light!”

The crowd roared with her, thousands of voices chanting her words back like gospel.

Every heartbeat in the stadium synced to her pulse.

Everything was working. Alex was having fun.

Then song three, “Striped Supremacy”, began.

The lights went low — deep, smoky reds and moody spotlights. The strobes slowed to a sultry pulse, turning her into a living silhouette with every flicker. Alex strutted forward on the catwalk, hips swaying in a slow, hypnotic rhythm, claws grazing the air as if carving invisible lines.

“They say I’m addicted, it’s always the same…” her voice dripped over the crowd, low and teasing. “Stripes in the night that I’ll never tame.”

The dancers formed around her again, this time tighter, sharper — their arms slicing diagonals, their steps hitting like daggers into the stage. Each twist of her hips set them off in chain reactions, a storm of bodies moving around her as if she were the eye. The smoke thickened, rising from the floor in sheets that caught the lights like crimson velvet.

“Striped supremacy, crown me in flame,” she crooned, snapping her claws in rhythm, the fans screaming it back at her. “Every rumor you write just builds my name.”

The fans reached for her as though worshiping, their hands straining into the glow.

She didn’t see the first scream.

But she heard it. Barely.

“HHhhaaaaaaaaahhh!”

A little off tempo. A little too sharp. Wrong.

She kept singing.

“Tigers, zebras, the stripes I claim, I rule this rhythm, you’ll scream it the same.”

Another scream. Closer.

She paused on a note, the mic trembling in her grip.

Two of the dancers glanced at each other, but kept moving. The lights pulsed brighter, strobes flickering with urgent frequency, and Alex spun—right into the bridge choreography. She slid low, claws scraping the stage, then rose in a fluid whip of motion to take her place at center. The other dancers dropped into a crouched ring around her, arms outstretched like supplicants.

Then, one of them didn’t get up.

A vixen, Dani — lithe, fast, with violet hair braided tight — missed her mark by just an inch.

Alex turned just in time to see a shape—blurry—on stage where it shouldn’t be. A figure had climbed up from the side stairwell. A fan? No. Not with that face. Not with those eyes.

Dani froze as she turned to meet it.

The thing lunged.

Teeth sank into Dani’s shoulder with a loud crunch, and her scream was a sound Alex had never heard in her life — high, real, breaking. Blood sprayed into the air in a fine, glistening arc, catching the strobe lights like glitter before spattering across Alex’s chest.

‘CRNCH!’

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!”

She flinched. She didn’t have time to think. The warmth soaked into the neckline of her bodysuit. A droplet hit her cheek and slid, thick and sticky, down to her jawline.

Dani fell backward into the rest of the dancers, who screamed and scattered. The creature — once a rabbit — tore into her like meat, snarling through the music, red streaking its mouth.

Alex froze.

Everything slowed.

Her mic was still live. She could hear her own breath in her in-ears. Her pulse. The music continued behind her like it didn’t care.

More screams from the crowd now. Not in rhythm. Not in joy.

“AAAAAHHHHHH!!! WHAT THE FUCKK!!! AAAAAAH!”

People were scrambling.

Security was trying to get on stage. Two figures in black rushed toward the attack. One got taken down halfway there—pulled into the pit, lost beneath clawing hands and gnashing teeth. His headset mic screamed as he went under, a shrill burst of static that cut through Alex’s earpiece before it went dead.

Then the lights flashed — an automated strobe that exposed just how many shapes in the crowd weren’t dancing anymore.

Hundreds. Maybe more.

Rows of fans slumped, convulsed, and then rose again with blank, blood-clouded eyes. They turned on neighbors with no hesitation. A skunk girl in a tour shirt sank her teeth into her best friend’s throat. A gazelle ripped a glow stick in half and jammed the sharp edge into a stranger’s cheek who tried to bite her. Whole clusters of bodies went down at once, screams and sobs muffled as they were buried under a stampede.

People being pulled down, stomped over, crushed. Bones cracked under boots. Limbs bent backward at impossible angles. Blood sprayed in arcs that caught the strobe lights, flashing crimson, white, crimson, white.

Another figure leapt onto the stage, slipping in the blood and sliding near Alex. He tried to scream for help, but his throat was already half gone. The sound that came out was a bubbling hiss.

“H-Help.. Grrrggmee…” He reached toward her ankle—and never made it. A pack of infected yanked him back, dragging him by the legs until his chin split on the LED floor, teeth scattering like dice.

She didn’t move. Couldn’t. Her ears rang. Everything had become too loud and too quiet at once.

Then came the pyro.

Perfectly timed, with that 0.2 second delay Logan had warned her about.

The cannons to stage left and right erupted full blast.

One of the infected — a weasel with half its snout torn off — had been crawling toward her. The blast engulfed it. Flame swallowed the creature whole. It screamed — not a voice, but a wet shriek of meat boiling. Fur blackened. Skin curled away. Muscle split open like rotten fruit. It collapsed, convulsing, flames eating it alive.

A second pyro fired.

A lion — already half-eaten, jaw hanging on tendons — ran into the blast and exploded at the chest. Ribs split. Guts hit the catwalk in fat, wet ropes, steaming against the lights. Chunks of burnt intestine splashed across the LED floor, sliding into the pit below where panicked fans slipped and fell into the waiting teeth of the infected.

The smell hit — cooked blood, burning fur. Nauseating. Alex staggered backward, covered with blood and the stink of burnt flesh.

The strobe lights flashed again, and in that half-second she saw the pit as a single, horrifying image: fans clawing over one another at the exits, some making it to the doors only to be yanked backward by teeth sinking into their spines. A man was pinned against the barrier, his chest being gnawed open as he screamed for someone—anyone—to help. His voice cracked. Then went silent.

Up above, the VIP box shattered into chaos. She caught glimpses of silhouettes smashing against the glass as they fought, one body hurled into the window so hard it cracked like ice. Another was shoved straight through the break, plummeting thirty feet into the pit, his body splattering on impact before the horde closed in.

Then she felt a grip on her arm.

Rick.

Her black bull bodyguard’s hands were massive, crushing her bicep as he yanked her toward the wing. “Go!” he shouted. His voice was hoarse, desperate, but firm—the same voice that had gotten her through a thousand mobs of fans.

She didn’t argue.

As they ran, another infected slammed into the speaker stack. The tower toppled sideways, crushing a group of dancers mid-scream. Blood sprayed across the monitors. Alex’s in-ears fizzed with static.

And the last thing she saw before vanishing backstage—

Was Dani. Still alive. Bleeding. Crawling.

And then being dragged back into the pit by six sets of claws, her nails raking the LED stage until they snapped clean off.

For the first time in her career, there was no applause, no screams of admiration and worship.

Alex Marx the Spot heard people dying.

---

Kia Forum. Stage Left. Backstage Hallway 8:28 PM.

The world narrowed to dim corridors.

Rick’s grip around Alex’s wrist was unrelenting as they fled the stage, pulling her through a backstage hallway bathed in red emergency light. Her boots skidded on the glossy concrete, leaving streaks of blood in her wake. The bass from the stage still vibrated through the walls, but it was buried now under the screaming. Too many voices. Too many wrong sounds.

The door slammed shut behind them. Somewhere down the hall, someone was begging. Then a scream. Then nothing.

Rick turned left, shouldering through a sound tech who looked dazed and bloodstained. Another runner stumbled past them—a zebra in headset and lanyard, sobbing, one arm mangled and hanging like meat. He didn’t even look at them as he barreled into the dark.

“We have to find Logan,” Alex gasped, yanking at Rick’s hand. “She was in the VIP box!”

“I saw the VIP box getting swarmed,” he snapped, not slowing. “If she got out, she’s running.”

“I’m not leaving her.”

“You will if you want to live.”

They turned a corner—and chaos met them head-on.

Crew members were scattering in every direction. A dolly cart had tipped over, scattering cans of fog fluid and tangled cords across the floor. A fox in stage blacks was pressed against the wall, sobbing into her headset. The lighting director lay face-down in a smear of red, his clipboard still clutched in his limp arms.

“Help!” someone screamed from the control room wing. “Help me, please, oh God—”

Alex recognized that voice.

It was Bobby.

He flew into view. Panicked. But the panic on his face faded momentarily when he saw Alex and Rick running down the hallway.

“Bobby, we need to run.” Alex said. But before Bobby could, before the slight smile on his face from seeing Alex and Rick alive faded, a pink and sparkly figure tackled him. A dancer—Alex recognized his outfit. A gorgeous flamingo, Kye. His leg bent the wrong way, but he was still able to run fast. Feral. Alex’s sound engineer fell to the ground with a blur of fur and blood. Sharp teeth. Screaming.

Rick spun Alex away before she could see more.

Another door slammed. Footsteps. Running. A crew member tripped, hitting the wall hard, only to be dragged away by something in the strobe-lit dark.

The hallway became a massacre. Red lights flickered. Sirens somewhere. Static from open mics fizzled overhead.

“Where are we going?” Alex gasped, her breath coming in shallow bursts. Her legs felt rubbery. Her chest was tight.

“Dressing room,” Rick barked. “We lock down. Regroup. Then get the hell out.”

A body hit the glass pane behind them. Alex shrieked. It was a hyena—her stylist? She couldn’t tell. His face was half-gone. He smeared blood down the window as he slid.

“Rick—”

“I see it. Keep moving.”

They finally reached the door to her dressing room. The bull punched in the code with a shaking hand. Beep. Beep. Slam. They burst through. He shoved her inside and turned to barricade.

The door closed with a clang that echoed through Alex’s skull.

---

Kia Forum. Stage Left. Dressing Room C. 8:36 PM.

Rick grabbed everything not bolted down—Alex’s makeup chair, a rolling clothing rack, a speaker crate—and shoved it in front of the door. His breath was ragged. His fur was matted dark at the shoulder. Blood? Sweat? Both?

Alex stumbled into the room, adrenaline crashing. Her ears rang. Her tail twitched wildly.

And then she heard it.

“Miss Marx?”

Riley.

He was lounging on the couch with his feet up, one hand holding a half-eaten protein bar, the other holding a tablet with a game of Fortnite on it. A soda can rested on his stomach. When the door slammed, he jolted upright and spilled it all over his shirt.

His eyes locked on the tigress—soaked in blood, trembling, her eyes wide with horror—and he sprang to his feet like he’d touched stuck a knife into a running toaster.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” Riley screamed, stumbling backward so fast he clipped the coffee table and nearly went down. His arms flailed uselessly as he stared, eyes darting between Alex and the blood dripping down her clothes. “What—what is—what happened?! Are you—Jesus, Alex, are you bleeding?! Is that blood?!” His voice cracked. “Is this—this part of the show?!”

“I thought—fuck—I thought it was just fans losing it,” he babbled, pacing in a jagged circle, clutching his head. “Like screaming, you know, screaming for you, right? That’s normal, that’s—I thought maybe you dropped a secret track or something, I don’t know! And then I heard these thuds, and I told myself it was security, dragging out some drunk asshole, like they always do—yeah? But then it kept going, and louder, and—” He stopped himself with a shudder, shaking his head hard.

He turned to Alex again, eyes darting across her blood-slicked arms, the red splattered across her chest, the wild look in her eyes.

“What the hell happened out there? Is that real blood? Is someone dead? Is this, like… a terrorist thing or—?!”

His voice climbed with every word. He was spiraling.

Alex didn’t respond. She walked over to her vanity and slid down to the floor with her back against it. Her breath came in fast and shallow. The adrenaline was crashing. Her limbs shook uncontrollably, her tail curled tight around her leg. Her hands trembled in her lap, blood dripping from her fur in globs. She wrapped her arms around herself and started to rock slightly, the shock creeping in as the memory of Dani’s scream replayed again and again like a broken loop.

She had just watched people get torn apart.

People she knew.

And it hadn’t been a nightmare.

It was real.

Rick didn’t look up from reinforcing the door. “It’s not a stunt. It’s not drunk fans. People are tearing each other apart.”

“No,” Riley said, shaking his head rapidly, like if he denied it fast enough it would come undone. “That doesn’t happen. That’s movie shit. That’s—”

He suddenly looked up at Alex, eyes wide with realization. “Wait—Logan. Where’s Logan?”

Alex didn’t answer. Her jaw clenched.

“Oh god,” Riley whispered. “Is she okay? Did you see her?”

Outside, something slammed into the hallway wall hard enough to rattle the coat hooks.

Everyone froze.

The room fell into sudden silence, everyone held their breath.

A dragging sound. Slow. Wet. Then a thud.

Riley backed up until he hit the far wall, hands raised in front of him like he could fend off the sound. “What the fuck is that—”

“Quiet,” Rick hissed.

Alex turned, her green eyes wide and locked on the door.

Another noise. Not a growl. Not a voice.

A wet, guttural chew. Something chewing something else.

Rick pulled out his pistol from its holster on his hip, disengaged the safety, and stepped closer to the door. His ears twitched.

Outside, the chewing stopped.

The door handle jiggled.

All three of them stared at it.

Slow. Testing. Back and forth.

Then a low moan.

“Hhhrrrrrr…”

Rick lifted a finger to silence them.

The handle stilled.

More silence.

Then the thing on the other side let out a breathy, strangled screech and slammed against the door.

“Hwwwaaauuuurrrrhhh!”

‘Thud!’

Riley screamed. Alex flinched.

The door held.

But for how long?

Alex stared at Rick. Then at Riley.

“People are dead,” she said softly. “It’s not just the crowd. Everyone is attacking each other.”

Riley’s eyes widened. “Attacking—? Like, a fight?”

Rick slammed a table leg into the floor to wedge it against the door handle.

“No,” Alex said, and her voice cracked. “Like eating.”

Riley started to hyperventilate. “What the FUCK…”

He sat hard on the floor.

Rick moved quickly, checking the room—vents, secondary exits, the storage closet. The whole time his hand never loosened around the pistol.

From outside the dressing room door, something slammed against it again.

‘THUD!’

Hard.

Once. Twice.

‘THUD!’

Riley jumped. Alex barely flinched.

Rick didn’t speak. He just stepped between them and the door.

“Do not open that for anyone,” he said. “Not unless you see them. Not unless they speak. Clearly.”

Silence. Breathing. Sweat.

A scream echoed somewhere deeper in the Forum. Then a voice over the crew radio at Rick’s belt and Alex’s in-ears, loud and garbled:

“They’re in the tunnels—repeat—they’re in the tunnels!—”

“—LOCKDOWN NOW—”

“—too fast—we can’t—”

Static.

Alex’s in-ears still played the click track of what would have been the song she was singing in the show. She pulled them out and threw them to the floor.

Then they went to static, too.

---

Kia Forum. Upper Level. VIP Box. 8:13 PM.

The VIP box had perfect sightlines.

The crowd shimmered below in a sea of glowsticks, LED cat ears, and bouncing bodies. The stage blazed with strobes, lights refracting through smoke as Alex prowled across it like she owned every inch of it. Logan leaned forward slightly against the glass, arms folded, brow furrowed despite the spectacle.

Alex was flawless tonight. Hit every cue. Controlled the crowd like a general. But Logan’s eyes weren’t on the art. They were on the crew. The corners. The movement. Always assessing.

Behind her, guests in cocktail outfits clinked glasses and snapped selfies against the panoramic view. Their laughter and the clatter of crystal merged with the low, heavy rumble of bass. Logan hated the VIP Box and the people in it. But they were rich fucks and industry nepo babies with their parents’ money to spend. She was a businesswoman; she wasn’t going to turn away money.

As she mused to herself about how pathetic these nepo babies were someone screamed.

It cut through the concert noise like a knife.

At first, it was easy to dismiss. Screams were normal. Expected. But this one was jagged. Real. Logan’s ears twitched.

Another scream tore through. Then another.

The sound changed. It wasn’t joy anymore. It was fear.

Logan turned from the glass.

Security was already in motion. A wolf in a Forum vest barked into his radio. Two VIPs near the minibar froze. One dropped a flute of champagne—the thin chime of crystal shattering lost under the rising pitch of panic.

From below, the noise shifted. A low ripple of confusion became an eruption of chaos—thuds of bodies slamming barricades, shoes pounding concrete, cries breaking like waves against the stadium’s walls.

Logan didn’t hesitate. She pulled her phone. Texted Rick.

SOMETHING’S WRONG. WHAT’S YOUR LOCATION?

No response. Just static hissing in her earpiece as the crew channel disintegrated into shrieks and dead air.

Below, the pit convulsed. A body smashed into the barricade with a crack of bone against steel. Blood sprayed across the rail, droplets catching the lights like rubies. A fan screamed until it became a gurgle as he was pulled under by gnashing teeth—bone snapping, sinew tearing, audible even over the pounding subwoofers.

From the concessions came a new sound— a blend of metal clattering, glass breaking, and voices shrieking in agony. The squeal of a deep fryer upending, the hiss of boiling oil kissing skin. The screams that followed were piercing, carried up into the rafters, mixing with the artificial roar of Alex’s instrument track.

Merch tables overturned. T-shirt cannons went off wildly—one slammed into an infected’s jaw, snapping it sideways, but the thing only lunged harder. Another infected grabbed a vendor by the waist and tore him backward, slamming his body across the table before splitting his stomach open with its claws. Glowstick necklaces spilled across the ground, trampled under blood-slick shoes.

Security radios crackled with broken static before cutting out entirely. A spotlight operator in the rafters shrieked—then was dragged screaming out of their booth. Their body tumbled over the edge, hit a rigging beam with a wet crack, and dangled from a safety harness, twitching like a string puppet.

Alex kept singing—she hadn’t seen it yet.

Behind Logan, the guests finally realized. Their shrieks filled the box, frantic and sharp. “Is this real?! Is this part of the show?!” one howled, voice cracking. Nobody answered.

A woman pressed a button to call the private elevator. It was still on the first floor.

Another guard radioed for help.

The box lights flickered.

From the stairwell came the slap of feet against steps. Heavy. Uneven.

She grabbed a champagne bottle and smashed it against the wall. The crack of glass was sharp, clean.

The sliding glass door burst open with the sound of metal grinding against its track. A skunk stumbled in, teeth clicking together like castanets, breath whistling wetly through a shredded throat. His merch shirt was soaked and sticky, each step squelching against the blood pooling in his shoes.

Logan slashed. The jagged bottle made a slicing whistle before tearing flesh. The infected screamed—a hollow, distorted howl.

“AAARRRHHHGHHHHH!”

Two guards tackled him. The thud of bodies hitting the floor rattled the VIP box, followed by a choking gurgle as the skunk’s jaws sank into a neck. The tearing sound was sharp, wet, final. Blood spurted, hissing against the bar’s glass surface as the guard’s death rattle wheezed out.

Then the box erupted.

The VIPs ran. Screaming, slipping in spilled champagne. Some clawed at the emergency exit door. Others tried to hide behind couches and tables, eyes wide, mouths open in useless screams.

“What the fuck!!!!”

An infected wolf lunged at a sharply dressed lioness in heels and pearls, tearing into her throat with a wet crunch. Blood sprayed across the ceiling as she collapsed, choking, gurgling, twitching.

A zebra in a velvet suit bolted, but his foot snagged on a toppled chair. He went down, screaming. His head slammed into the edge of a glass table, shattering it and knocking him unconscious. The infected swarmed him instantly, jaws snapping, pulling strips of flesh off his legs and arms.

Another guest made a break for the exit, but was slammed into the glass wall. The impact sent a spiderweb of cracks racing across the reinforced window. A second later, two more bodies collided into it in panic. One woman slipped and hit the glass face-first—her skull went straight through, the pane shattering.

She fell—screaming all the way—plummeting into the chaos of the stadium below. Her body hit the lower concourse with a sickening splat.

Someone else leapt after her, not to escape but in blind terror. They didn’t scream. They just fell.

The floor was flooded with blood, broken glass, half-trampled luxury handbags. Infected poured in from the hallway, snarling, mouths smeared red.

Logan hurled a metal tray at one barreling through the doorway—it clanged off its skull but didn’t stop it. More shoved behind, clawing, snarling.

She backed into the supply closet, slammed the door, and locked it from the inside.

Darkness swallowed her.

Breathing hard, she slid down the wall, bloody bottle still clenched in her grip.

“I swear to God, Riley,” she whispered, voice shaking despite herself, “if you’re in the dressing room playing Fortnite right now…”

A thud hit the door.

‘THUD!’

She held her breath.

‘THUD!’

Another thud. Then the wet screech of claws dragging down the wood.

---

Kia Forum. Stage Left. Dressing Room C. 9:22 PM.

The room was dim, lit only by the vanity bulbs and the occasional flicker from the red emergency lights from the hallway bleeding under the door.

Alex sat with her back against the mirrored wall now, one leg folded under her, the other stretched out stiffly. Her fur was crusted with dried blood, brown-black patches streaking her arms and face. She was still. Not relaxed—never that—but quiet. Processing. Every now and then, a muscle in her jaw would twitch like she was clenching down to hold in the shaking.

Riley was anything but still.

He paced. Sat. Stood. Paced again. Wringing his hands. Running his fingers through his messy hair. Mumbling under his breath. The room was too small for how fast his thoughts were racing.

“Do you think she’s okay?” he asked for the third time in five minutes. “Like, Logan’s smart, right? She probably got out. Or she’s holed up somewhere. She—she always knows what to do. She has a plan. Right?”

Rick stood with his shoulder pressed to the door, gun still gripped, his index finger begging to break trigger discipline, his walkie in the other hand.

“Forum security, come in. This is Rick Helms, dressing room C. We have three survivors. Repeat, three survivors. Do you copy?”

Static.

He clicked to the next channel. “South tunnels? Stage B crew? Anyone read?”

More static.

A faint metallic groan echoed through the building, deep and far away, like a giant exhaling its last breath. Riley flinched.

Alex finally spoke. Her voice was low, hoarse. “She’d be too pissed off to be dead.”

Riley looked at her. “You think?”

Alex gave a faint shrug. “You’ve met her.”

Rick almost smiled.

But then something crashed, far down the hall. A metal clang, like a barricade being broken. Then running footsteps. Then a scream, short and choked off.

“OH GOD!!! NO! NO-!”

Riley grabbed a mop and backed toward the far wall. “Okay. Nope. No. I don’t like that sound.”

Rick lowered the walkie, his ears flicking.

Alex pulled herself up, one hand on the wall. Her muscles ached, and the blood that had dried against her fur tugged painfully when she moved. But she was upright now.

She reached for a mic stand that she had left by the mirror. Her fingers curled around it.

Another sound. Louder this time. A door slamming somewhere. Another scream. Footsteps. Closer.

“Shhh,” Rick whispered, motioning them all to silence.

Riley’s breathing was too loud. But he couldn’t do it any quieter.

They all listened.

The footsteps slowed. Then stopped.

A long beat of silence.

Then a scrape. Right outside the door. Something dragging metal across the floor.

Alex held her breath.

Another scrape. Then the slow, steady tap of claws—or fingers—along the length of the doorframe.

Rick tensed, weapon raised.

Riley whimpered.

The door handle jiggled once. Twice. Slowly.

Then stopped.

Then something leaned against the door hard enough to make it creak.

Then nothing.

A full minute passed.

Another.

Then the sound of footsteps, walking away.

But none of them moved.

The quiet was somehow worse than the noise.

---

Kia Forum. Upper Level. VIP Box. 9:00 PM.

The screams had stopped.

Not faded. Not moved. Stopped.

Inside the dark supply closet, Logan pressed her back against the wall, bloodied champagne bottle resting across her lap. Her breaths were shallow, almost imperceptible. She had waited. And listened. Long enough to know that whatever was out there wasn’t moving anymore.

She stood slowly, joints aching and stiff. Her blazer was torn at the elbow, her fur matted in dried blood that tugged at her with every shift. She took a long breath, pushed open the closet door an inch, and peeked into the ruins of the VIP suite.

It was carnage.

The once-luxurious box was soaked in blood and guts. Velvet couches were slashed open and soaked through. Blood smeared the windows, the walls, the floor. Bodies were strewn across the room like abandoned props—slumped in chairs, twisted over railings, or crumpled on the tile. Some had clearly been guests. Others… weren’t.

The raccoon stepped out, every muscle tight with caution.

Silence thickened the air, broken only by the hum of emergency power and the occasional hiss of a damaged ventilation system. The red strobes painted the room like a horror show: each pulse revealing a new horror, a new mangled body, a new painting made from guts and gore on the wall.

She moved slowly between the bodies.

A crushed purse lay beside a chair, its contents scattered—lipstick, a broken phone, a child’s drawing folded four times with the words “To Mommy <3” scrawled in crayon. Logan’s eyes lingered on it for a breath. Then she looked away.

The shattered glass table bore the imprint of someone’s face, flattened and bloodied. A VIP lanyard still clung to the neck of the zebra whose jaw had been torn clean off. The flash from a disposable camera blinked softly on the floor, capturing nothing.

Each time Logan approached a body, she gave it a careful prod or nudge. She crouched once beside a tiger sprawled beneath a broken floor lamp, checked for breath. None.

A child’s light-up wristband blinked green-blue near the entrance, attached to a wrist too small to belong to any of the guests. Logan didn’t stop to check. Her jaw clenched tighter.

Near the bar, the stench worsened. Citrus, alcohol, blood—cloying and sour. The cocktail station was painted in red, the shelves cracked. A bartender’s apron lay in a heap, contents of the pockets strewn out—gum, matches, a keycard.

Logan stepped behind the counter. Her heels crunched broken glass. She knelt, hand steady as she picked up a serrated citrus knife. She tested the edge with her thumb, nodded once, and slid it into her blazer. The champagne bottle was too awkward. She left it behind and hefted a cocktail shaker instead.

One last glance around the room.

She moved toward the exit.

The closer she got to the doors, the colder it felt.

She paused at the doorway and listened for footsteps, screams, anything. No footsteps. Nothing.

The smashed glass sliding doors still pathetically slid open, slow, loud. Logan winced but didn’t stop. She slipped through and tried her best to not make any more noise than necessary.

The corridor smelled worse than the suite. Blood was smeared in long strokes down the walls. Ceiling tiles drooped with moisture. A light dangled from exposed wires, flickering like a dying firefly.

Personal items littered the path—phones left behind, a designer heel snapped clean off at the arch, a child’s backpack shaped like a dinosaur. One ear torn. It lay in a trail of red footprints.

She stepped forward, quiet as breath.

Somewhere down the hall, metal screeched. Something crashed.

Logan froze.

She held her ground, ears perked, every instinct coiled.

Nothing followed.

Then her pocket buzzed.

‘Bzzz!’

The vibration made her flinch. She pulled her phone out from her blazer pocket with bloody fingers and glanced down.

One message.

From Rick.

DRESSING ROOM C. THREE SURVIVORS. ALEX ALIVE.

She read it twice.

Then slid the phone away, adjusted her grip on her weapons, and took off down the hall at a jog.

Rick said three survivors… she hoped the other one was Riley.

As annoying, scatterbrained, and perpetually late as he was—he was still hers to yell at. And she wasn’t ready to lose that, not yet.

---

Kia Forum. Stage Left. Dressing Room C. 10:06 PM.

Riley was still pacing in frantic circles, pulling at his ears, muttering half-coherent prayers under his breath. The boy wasn’t even a religious person. Rick sat on the edge of the couch, pistol balanced on the armrest, head cocked toward the muffled chaos that still rumbled somewhere behind the door, deep in the Forum.

Then—bang. Bang. Bang.

A new sound. Close. Someone hammering against the hallway door.

Alex froze, every muscle locking. Riley’s eyes went wide. "They’ve found us," he whispered, his voice high and cracking. The pounding grew louder, more urgent. A muffled voice leaked through, half-smothered by the door.

“Open the goddamn door!”

Rick shot to his feet, weapon raised. Alex’s heart stuttered in her chest. She knew that voice.

“Logan?” Alex said.

Another slam rattled the frame, the knob shaking like it might rip free. "It’s me, open up before those things hear me!"

Riley nearly tripped over himself rushing for the door, panic and relief warring across his face. He began removing the barricade with surprising speed and strength. Alex shot forward, grabbing his arm before he could undo the last manual lock.

“How do we know it’s really her?” Alex hissed, trembling. “What if it’s—what if it’s—"

“Then we die in here anyway!” Riley snapped back, louder than he meant. The pounding didn’t stop. It grew sharper, more frantic. Logan’s voice shredded with fury and desperation on the other side.

‘BANG. BANG. BANG.’

“I swear to god Riley, if you don’t open this fucking door RIGHT NOW!”

Rick leveled his gun at the door, jaw tight. “On three. If it’s her, fine. If it’s not—” he didn’t finish the sentence. His fingers slid to the lock.

“One… two…”

The lock snapped. The door slammed inward with force that knocked Rick stumbling back. Before he could react, a blood-slick fist swatted the gun aside. It clattered to the floor.

Logan stepped in, breathing hard, her raccoon mask smeared red behind her glasses. Her blazer was torn down one arm, soaked dark with blood, her hair matted and sticking to her face. She slammed the door shut behind her, throwing the bolt with trembling fingers.

Riley yelped, backing up against the couch. “Holy shit—Logan!”

Rick recovered his weapon and lifted it again; muzzle aimed squarely at her. “You bitten?”

Logan’s eyes cut to him, cold and sharp despite the exhaustion in her frame. “No. Not bitten.” Her voice was iron, clipped, steady.

Alex pressed a hand to her mouth, staring at her manager, trembling. Logan didn’t flinch under the attention—she just squared her shoulders, even as blood dripped from the hem of her sleeve.

Riley edged closer, voice cracking. “That’s a lot of blood, Logan. If you’re not bitten, then—then whose is it?”

Logan’s jaw tightened. “Not mine.”

Rick still had the gun raised, his finger trembling against the trigger guard. “Lift your sleeves. Now.”

Logan bared her teeth, eyes narrowing. “I said I’m not bitten. You think I’d drag myself all the way here just to turn in front of you?”

Alex’s voice finally broke through, soft, shaking. “Logan… please. Just show us.”

For a moment, the raccoon looked like she might bite back—but then with a sharp exhale, she yanked her sleeves up to the elbow. Blood smeared her fur, but her skin beneath was unbroken. She turned her wrists over, then shoved her arm toward Rick with a snap, knocking the gun from his grip. “Happy?”

Rick’s gaze flicked over her limbs, then down to her neck as she pulled her collar aside to reveal nothing but more smeared gore. After a beat, he sighed.  “She’s clean.”

Logan bent to scoop the gun from the floor, shoved it back against Rick’s chest hard enough to rock him. “Point that at me again, and I’ll fucking take it from you.”

The tension hung thick as smoke. Riley swallowed audibly, tail flicking. “Rick said the VIP box was swarmed, how the hell did you make it down here alive?”

Logan leaned back against the door, arms crossed, blood dripping in steady pats to the floor. “You don’t want the details.”

Alex shuddered. The way her manager said it—flat, final—made the silence after even heavier.

Kia Forum. Mid-Level Concourse. Passage to Backstage Area. 09:30 PM.

The stadium was still a nightmare when Logan forced herself out of the shattered VIP box. The echo of screams bounced through the vast chambers of the KIA Forum, a mix of panic and guttural hunger. She didn’t let herself think—if she thought too much, she’d stop moving. And if she stopped moving, she’d die.

Her Chanel heels were gone, abandoned somewhere back in the chaos. Now her bare paws slapped the concrete, every step stinging, as she gripped the citrus-stained bar knife in one hand, knuckles white. Every corridor was a trap. Every corner came with the risk of death.

The first sight made her stomach twist: a concessions stand torn apart, its red-shirted staff strewn in chunks across the counter. A rabbit’s ears lay on the tiles, twitching from the last spasms of nerves. Popcorn and candy coated the floor; kernels clumped with blood until they looked like brain matter. Behind the register, a coyote still moved, jaw working as though chewing, his throat a mangled mess. Logan pressed herself against the wall, the stink of butter and iron choking her throat, and forced her legs to move. She counted her breaths: in, out, steady.

At the end of the hall, a group of fans staggered into view. A kangaroo clutched a shredded merch bag. A husky dragged a rolled-up poster that smeared through blood. One wore a foam finger, soaked red up to the elbow. Their cloudy eyes turned toward her at once. The bags dropped. Their shrieks rose together—a chorus of wet, broken howls—as they charged.

“Hhhhhhhyyyyaaaauuuuuukkk!!!!!”

Logan bolted down a side hallway. “Shit, shit, shit,” she panted, lungs burning. She slammed into the women’s restroom, door banging wide. Her knife came up just as the first one burst through—the kangaroo teen, half his face gone.

“FUCK!” she snarled, driving the blade into his eye. The resistance made her arm jolt. Then came the give—the sudden, squishy slide as the knife punctured through the socket and into soft tissue. A wet pop echoed, followed by a spray of hot blood across her muzzle. It clung to her fur in heavy droplets, running down her cheek and dripping off her chin. The kangaroo convulsed, claws scraping her arm. Logan shoved him sideways into the second attacker—a husky in a torn Alex Marx hoodie. Their combined weight slammed into a locked stall door, the hinges shrieking.

The husky roared in her face, strings of saliva swinging from his jowls. Logan twisted the knife inside the kangaroo’s skull. A crunch reverberated up her arm. The body went slack, sliding down the canine’s chest. He lunged, teeth snapping shut so close she felt the rush of displaced air. Logan tore the knife free, lifted it high, and rammed it under his chin. The blade tore up through his tongue, shattered teeth, and punctured the roof of his mouth. Blood and spit fountained across her chest. His body shuddered violently before collapsing onto the roo’s corpse.

Logan stepped back, chest heaving, knife trembling in her hand. She gagged once, wiped her muzzle with the back of her arm, and forced herself out into the hall. She stayed upright, shoulders squared, even though her legs wobbled.

She kept moving

A stairwell nearly killed her. She slipped on blood, crashing hard onto the landing. Her knife clattered away, skidding down a step. Pain shot up her leg. She cursed under her breath, crawling after it. “Fuck… Fuck…”

Then fingers closed around her ankle. She screamed. A zebra’s face rose from the floor, eyes milky, jaws yawning.

“Hhhhyuuuhhh!” it groaned, pulling itself closer. Logan kicked wildly, heel smashing into its nose with a crack.

“AAAARRGH!” she shouted, voice raw. She clawed forward on her knees, grabbed the knife, then twisted onto her side. With a roar, she plunged the blade into the zebra’s skull. Bone cracked, blood sprayed across her arm. The grip loosened. She yanked her leg free, then climbed back to her feet.

And kept moving.

The service corridors pulsed with emergency strobes. Each flash gave Logan a glimpse of what could kill her: a fox slack and pale, jaws open; a pair of possums crawling on all fours, tails dragging; a lioness looming close, mane clotted with guts. In the dark between, they moved. In the light, they lunged. Logan stood her ground, knife raised, slashing in every burst of red. Steel hit flesh with meaty thuds. Blood sprayed in glowing arcs under the strobes, painting her arms and chest. One grabbed her hair, yanking her head back. She shrieked, slammed a fist into its jaw, then buried the knife into its temple. The body stiffened, twitching, before she shoved it away. Another barreled into her, slamming her into the wall. She gasped, teeth clenched, but stayed on her feet, kicking hard until her heel caved its legs with a wet crack. She stomped down, skull collapsing like rotten fruit. The sound was sickening, her own panting louder than the snarls.

“Keep… Moving,” she hissed, dragging the knife up, fur bloodied, hands trembling. “Don’t stop. Don’t you dare stop.”

Every kill drained her. Every step was slower. Her blazer hung in strips, her fur matted, sticky, layered with gore that wasn’t hers. She leaned once against the wall, pressing her forehead to cold concrete, leaving behind a stamp of her head on the white wall. For a heartbeat she let herself breathe, eyes closed, jaw tight. Alex and Riley—they were waiting. She couldn’t stop here, not now. The dressing room was just a few more minutes away.

Minutes stretched into eternity. Each hallway was another gauntlet, each stairwell another gamble. But she never stopped. Not once.

At last, the dressing room door. Voices inside. Familiar. Alive.

She raised her blood-slick hand and slammed her fist against the frame.

‘BANG.’

‘BANG.’

‘BANG.’

“Open the goddamn door!”

---

Present Day.

Alex’s Beverly Hills Residence. Foyer.

The groan lingered in her ears long after it stopped.

Alex’s grip tightened around her axe, claws digging into the handle. Every inch of her fur stood on end, tail stiff, instincts screaming at her to run. But she didn’t.

She crept deeper into the foyer, eyes darting over every corner. The walls that once glowed with neon artwork now bore smeared handprints, dragged upward as if their owners had been yanked away mid-struggle. A platinum record lay shattered across the floor, the disc warped, flecked with something darker than dust.

The staircase loomed at the far end, streaked with blood like a dried up waterfall.

She stepped a paw on the first step. The glass whined under her weight. Alex froze, holding her breath, ears straining.

No cracks.

Step by step, she climbed the stairs, her muscles taut, every creak of the staircase had her anxiety shooting up. By the time she reached the top, her heart felt like it had crawled into her throat.

The hallway stretched ahead, long and narrow. Recessed lights flickered in and out, some burned out completely, leaving stretches of shadow. Open doors gaped along the walls like empty mouths.

She passed her home office first. The glass desk had shattered, shards sticking up like teeth. Papers lay scattered across the floor, some glued down by dried blood. The ergonomic chair was overturned, one wheel still spinning faintly as if it had been moved recently.

Alex leaned closer, axe raised—only for the chair to squeal suddenly as it settled. She staggered back, breath catching. Nothing else moved.

She swallowed hard and forced herself forward.

The guest bedroom came next. The mattress had been gutted, springs jutting out like ribs. A pair of shoes sat neatly by the bed, as if their owner had stepped out of them and never returned. On the wall above the headboard, someone had smeared a word in blood: HELP.

The air was heavier here, fouler. The stench of death thickened.

Something clattered in the linen closet farther down. Alex spun, axe raised, her breath ragged. The closet door was half-open, a sheet hanging limply from it. Something moved beneath.

She slowly opened the door.

‘Creeeeeaaaaak.’

Rosa.

Her maid. A gentle golden retriever with kind eyes and a thick accent who always hummed while folding towels. Now she lay crumpled inside, face frozen in terror, body bloated and gray. Her uniform was torn, ribs jutting through in places. Her paw twitched. Alex’s pulse spiked—then she saw the source: flies crawling over her, wings buzzing. The twitching was nothing but their feeding.

“Jesus fuck…” Alex stumbled back, nearly dropping the axe. For a second, she thought she might collapse. She had imagined Rosa making it out in the convertible. Maybe hiding in Palm Springs. Maybe alive.

But she was here.
Dead.
Rotting in her linen closet.

Alex’s vision blurred. She slammed the door shut so hard it rattled the frame, then leaned against the wall, clutching the axe until her knuckles ached.

Alex pattered out of the guest room, hand clamped over her mouth. Her stomach churned violently, the image of Rosa’s gray and lifeless face burned behind her eyelids. She stumbled into the hallway and pressed herself against the glass railing overlooking the atrium.

Her body gave up the fight.

She leaned over and heaved. Vomit splattered against fractured glass before dripping down in ropes to the marble floor below. The sound was obscene in the silence—wet splashes echoing through the cavernous space. Acid burned her throat, tears stung her eyes. The stench mixed with the rot already hanging in the air until her head spun.

She gasped, coughing, one hand still clutching the railing, the other wiping at her mouth with a trembling wrist. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to breathe through the sour taste.

A snarl snapped her eyes open.

“Hhrrrnnn…”

Close. Too close.

Alex jerked around, bile still in her mouth.

Melvin.

Her gardener, her handyman, the only other tiger on her housekeeping payroll. The one who always cracked bad jokes in the kitchen. His clothes were shredded, claws black with blood. His body looked wrong—more muscular then normal, veins bulging like cords under his striped fur. His eyes glowed with a glassy, rabid glaze. His teeth were bared in a grin that was horror-movie sinister.

And then he started running.

Fast. Too fast.

The sound of the albino tiger sprinting down the hall was horrific—bare feet slapping against polished concrete in thunderous thumps, claws scraping along the walls, a guttural growl bubbling up into a scream.

‘Thmp! Thmp! Thmp!’

“HRRRRRRHHHAAAAAAAARRRRH!”

“Melvin—!” Alex barely choked his name before he slammed into her.

The impact drove the air out of her lungs. Her back hit the railing hard. The glass screeched as cracks spiderwebbed under their combined weight. She felt it bending beneath her, groaning, the sound sharp and high-pitched like ice splitting on a frozen lake.

Then it gave way.

The world dropped out from under her.

They went over in a storm of glass. Shards exploded outward, catching the sunlight as they spun, whistling as they fell. Alex’s scream was swallowed by the crash of shattering panels, the howl of Melvin’s rage, the deafening BOOM as they smashed into the couch below.

“AaaaaaaaaaHHHH-OOOFH!”

‘Pwmph!’

Cushions erupted, feathers and dust choking the air. The frame splintered with a crack like breaking bones. Alex’s ribs screamed. The axe flew from her grasp, clattering uselessly across the floor.

Melvin landed on top of her, snarling, breath rancid, his claws punching into her shoulders. She gagged, coughing on feathers and spit, her hands scrambling uselessly against his chest as his jaws snapped at the air in front of him.

His gardener build crushed her into the couch. The fabric of her tank top split under the strain, threads snapping as his nails tore it open. She thrashed beneath him, screaming, the sound swallowed by his guttural snarl and the thunder of her own heartbeat.

His jaws snapped at her throat, spit spraying her face. The rancid stink of old blood and bile filled her nose, gagging her. She shoved her hand against his muzzle, straining, but his strength was monstrous, not even she could handle it.

The couch frame gave way with a crack. They rolled sideways, feathers and dust exploding around them, before slamming onto the marble floor. Glass shards embedded in Alex’s back and legs, biting sharp through her fur.

“FUCK!” She cried out, but Melvin didn’t pause. He raked downward, claws tearing her pants along the thigh, shredding fabric until blood welled in hot lines across her skin.

Alex’s free hand scrabbled against the floor until it found something jagged—a shard of glass. She slashed upward blindly. The shard cut across his arm, leaving a shallow but dark red gash. Melvin roared, recoiling just enough for her to buck her hips and twist. But he came right back, his claws ripping what was left of her fish net top until parts of it, even the biggest of fish could slip through

Feathers clung to the blood on her chest and stomach, sticking in almost modern art patterns.

“Get off!” she screamed, jamming her knee up into Melvin’s ribs. The impact made him falter for half a heartbeat, just enough for her to wriggle sideways. She clawed at the marble, glass grinding under her palms as she dragged herself toward the axe.

It was only a few feet away. But every inch felt like a mile.

Melvin’s shadow loomed over her. He pounced, slamming into her side, claws tearing across her arm. The pain shot like fire. Her scream cracked in her throat.

“AAAHUHGGH!!!”

She kicked wildly, connecting with his knee, his jaw, anything she could reach. He snapped back, blood dripping from his mouth—hers or his, she couldn’t tell. His claws tore into her skin and fur.

The axe gleamed in the corner of her vision, just out of reach.

Alex stretched her arm out, fingertips brushing the handle. Melvin’s claws clamped down on her wrist, yanking it back. He opened his mouth wide, hot rancid breath washing over her neck as his teeth closed in.

Her lungs burned. Her strength faltered. The world shrank to the sound of his snarls, her screams, and the desperate scrape of her claws against the marble as she reached—again—for the axe.

Alex’s palm scraped against the marble, claws squealing across the polished surface. The axe was right there. Just a hair away. Her fingertips brushed the smooth steel handle—close enough to taste victory—when Melvin slammed her wrist down again, pinning it with bone-crushing force.

“Aaauhhaaahgg—!” she screamed, voice cracking under the weight of it.

His jaws snapped toward her face, teeth clacking together with a gunshot pop. She twisted just in time, the rancid hot breath rushing over her cheek. Another lunge—his teeth slammed shut an inch from her throat, so close she felt the snap reverberate through her spine.

She shoved her hand against his snout again, muscles straining, his saliva dripping across her arm. His claws continued to tear at her, raking down her torso. More feathers and dust stuck to her fur as his weight drove her down harder, the marble grinding glass shards deeper into her back.

The axe was still out of reach. Just a millimeter too far.

Her vision tunneled, heart pounding in her ears. This was it. She was as good as gone.

Then—like a lightbulb flicking on—she remembered.

The couch.

The shotgun.

She wrenched her free hand sideways, jamming it under the broken frame. Her claws scraped stuffing, wood splinters biting into her pads—then closed on something solid. Cold steel.

She ripped the shotgun out from it’s Velcro strap, cocked it by instinct, and rammed the barrel against the albino tiger’s ribs.

‘Ch-chk.’

Melvin stopped and looked down at the barrel pressed to his chest, as if even as a monster, he recognized what it was.

‘BOOM.’

The blast thundered through the atrium. Melvin’s torso erupted in a spray of blood and guts. Buckshot shredded him open, ribs snapping apart, organs bursting outward in a slurry of red and black. The force hurled him backward, chunks of flesh and bone splattering the walls.

“Hrrrraaaaghhh!”

He hit the floor writhing, a gurgling roar tearing from his ruined chest. His claws scrabbled uselessly against the marble, his lower half twitching in spasms. Half his side was gone—muscle and lung blasted into pulp, bone jutting like shattered porcelain.

But he was still moving.

“Always the hard-worker.” Alex grumbled.

She pumped the shotgun again, the metallic click echoing through the empty house. She leveled the barrel at his head, breathing hard, hands trembling.

‘Ch-chk.’

Melvin raised his broken arm as if to reach for her. His jaw worked in a grotesque half-snarl, teeth dripping blood that wasn’t his.

“Hhhhrhrrrraaaaahh!”

She didn’t hesitate.

‘BOOM.’

The second blast painted the marble a crimson Jackson Pollok. His skull exploded like a melon dropped from a rooftop, shards of bone and brain spattering the walls, ceiling, and her own fur. One of his eyes burst completely, a moist pop that was enough to make the strongest people gag.

Silence followed, except for the hiss of smoke curling from the shotgun’s barrel.

Alex stayed frozen, chest heaving, ears ringing, her shredded clothes clung to her sticky fur. Melvin’s blood, guts, and brain matter dripped from her brow.

Slowly, she lowered the gun. She let out a ragged laugh that wasn’t really a laugh. “God bless America,” she muttered, voice shaking, the bitter joke echoing in the blood-soaked silence.

Melvin was gone. For good.

After a few breaths in and out, she bolted toward the open-plan kitchen that was just off to the side of the living room. She managed to make it to the sink before she started hurling the rest of what she had eaten that morning right out into the drain.

---

Seven Days Earlier
Kia Forum. Stage Left. Dressing Room C. 12:00 AM.

The air inside the dressing room was heavy, thick with sweat, fear, and the lingering copper tang of blood. Outside, the stadium still groaned with chaos—distant shrieks and the pounding of the dead against walls that wouldn’t hold forever. Logan knew it wasn’t safe. Not here. Not in a building packed with thousands of corpses waiting to wake.

Alex sat slumped in a chair, blood dried into her fur. Her green eyes stared blankly at the floor until Logan’s hand landed on her shoulder. Riley paced in frantic circles again. Rick leaned against the door, pistol in his lap, jaw tight, eyes scanning for anything that moved.

“We can’t stay here,” Logan said, her voice steady but low. “Every second we sit in this room, more of them gather outside. It’s a matter of time before the whole place comes down on us.”

“No shit,” Riley snapped, his voice cracking. He scrubbed his hands through his fur and let out a nervous laugh that broke halfway. “Thousands of them, Logan. Thousands. Where the hell do you think we’re going to go?”

Rick pulled the slide on his handgun with a loud chhk-chhk, the sound making them all flinch. “Doesn’t matter where. Just not here.”

Alex finally spoke, her voice faint but trembling. “So, what do we do?”

The silence after lasted a good minute.

Logan broke it by crouching down in front of Alex. Her paw pressed gently to Alex’s knee, her sharp blue eyes searching the tiger’s face. “Are you okay?” she asked, quieter now, softer than she usually allowed herself to be.

The tigress lifted her head. Her voice was steadier than before, but her hands still trembled in her lap. “Better than before,” she admitted. “I’m here.” She forced a faint, brittle smile, though her eyes gave away the aftershocks still coursing through her body.

Riley paused in his pacing, staring at the two of them. His ears twitched nervously before he blurted, “What about you, Logan? You look like hell. Are you—are you okay?”

Logan’s head snapped toward him, eyes narrowing. “I said I’m fine,” she snapped, the edge in her tone cutting across the room. The hyena flinched, ears folding back, his muzzle opening like he might argue. Instead, he muttered, “Sorry. Just… worried.”

The raccoon didn’t answer, just turned back to Alex, her face once more locked in that iron mask.

Riley broke the silence a second later, his eyes went wide and he stammered, “Sorry, Logan. I wasn’t trying to—”

Logan’s expression didn’t soften, but she didn’t bite back this time. She simply folded her arms, blood-streaked fur sticking to her sleeves, and let him stew in his own apology.

Rick finally spoke, voice low but firm. “We need a plan.” He nodded toward the door, where faint thuds and groans echoed down the hall. “We’re sitting ducks here.”

Logan’s eyes flicked toward him. “There’s a way out. Service tunnels under the Forum. They lead toward the subway station. If we can reach the platform, we can surface outside—get into the city.”

Riley’s eyes went wide. “The tunnels? Nu-uh. That’s— that’s like walking into a fucking crypt. Dark, cramped, full of god-knows-what. You heard the guy on the radio before, he said they were in the tunnels, too.”

“Safer than this,” Logan said flatly. “At least in the tunnels we have somewhere to go. We keep moving forward, and get out.”

Alex swallowed hard, then stood slowly, wiping at the dried blood in her fur. Her knees shook, but she forced herself steady. “If it gets us out of here… then we do it.”

Rick let out a sigh and turned the safety on his gun off with a metallic click. “Then it’s decided.” He glanced at Riley. “We grab what we can, and head out.”

They gathered what little they had, Rick taking point with his gun, Logan with the bartender’s knife, Alex behind her with a mic stand, and Riley bringing up the rear with a broken broomstick in hand. Together, they slipped out of Dressing Room C into the blood-smeared corridors of the Forum, heading for the tunnels below.

---

The hallways were quieter now, giving the illusion of safety. Every step echoed a little too loudly, their breathing ragged as they tried to take in as little of the smells as possible. The floor was soaked in too many places, smeared with blood and littered with abandoned shoes, glowsticks, and phones that buzzed faintly with unread notifications.

Rick led them to a maintenance stairwell tucked behind a locked door. He opened the door with a swipe of his security card. A small but loud speaker rattled, the lock clicked, and the light on it turned green.

‘BEEEEP!’

‘Clk.’

Everyone froze, listening. Groans rippled faintly in the distance, but nothing came close. Rick motioned sharply with his hand: move. After they all went through the door, Riley closed the door behind them.

Behind the door were a set of stairs that spiraled down into shadow. Water dripped from rusted pipes that hung overhead, each drop landing in a puddle about four stories below, echoing like a ticking clock. The smell changed as they descended—less stadium musk, more dirt and damp earth. Alex’s hands trembled on the railing, cold with condensation. She swallowed hard, every muscle tight.

At the bottom was a heavy service door. Rick braced his shoulder and shoved it open with a groan of hinges. Beyond was the tunnel—low ceilings, bare bulbs flickering, concrete walls stained with water and darker things. The air was close, wet, slightly suffocating.

Riley muttered, “Feels like a goddamn tomb.” He wasn’t wrong.

“Quiet,” Logan snapped. Her eyes scanned the shadows, her ears perked up. “It’s unusually quiet down here, are you sure you heard that they were in the tunnels?” she whispered.

The hyena tightened his grip around the broken mop handle in his hand and nodded. “Yeah, clear as day, before it went static.” He licked his dry lips which had begun to chap a little. “Rick and Alex heard it, too.”

The raccoon turned over her shoulder to check on Alex as she followed behind and the tigress gave her a nod. “Yeah, ‘they’re in the tunnels.’ Verbatim.”

Logan turned her head to look forward again as they continued trekking through the tunnels underneath the Forum. Her eyes scanned around them for blood, guts, or any sign that those things had been there at all. Nothing.

She didn’t like the false sense of security that it gave her.

Something felt wrong.

They pressed forward in a narrow line. Rick first, gun raised, finger slightly off the trigger in a remarkable display of trigger discipline, still. Logan was close behind, knife at the ready. Alex tried to keep her breaths shallow, but her heart thundered too loud in her chest. Riley lagged a step, his tail tucked low.

The deeper they went, the more the silence pressed in. Drips, hums, the scrape of claws on damp concrete—every sound made them jump. Then came something new: a low groan from ahead, reverberating through the tunnel. A shape shuffled at the edge of the flickering light, its shadow stretching long across the wall.

Rick hissed through his teeth, raising the gun up to aim. Logan extended an arm to hold him back, her eyes locked forward. “Don’t shoot,” she whispered. “Too loud.”

The shadow lurched closer, dragging its foot with a grinding scrape. Its head lolled unnaturally to the side, muzzle hanging open. The smell of blood thickened. Alex gagged, clapping a hand over her mouth.

Logan tightened her grip on the knife. “Keep quiet,” she breathed.

They froze in place, barely breathing, until the infected staggered into a side alcove and slumped against the wall. It hissed faintly, swiping at the air with dull claws, but never turned its clouded eyes toward them. Inch by inch, the group slid past, their steps as light as falling dust. Rick’s boot brushed a pebble and it clattered across the floor; everyone stiffened, hearts hammering, until the groaning figure twitched once and went still again. Only then did they dare move forward.

They walked for what felt like forever. The tunnels narrowed, widened, then bent around blind corners where shadows seemed to pool. At each one, Rick raised a paw to halt them, listening—counting out ten, fifteen, twenty beats of silence before signaling with a jerk of her head. The silence was their shield; it was the only thing keeping the groans at bay.

The deeper they went, the more the air stank of moisture and sewage, until Alex had to breathe through her mouth to keep from gagging. Somewhere in the dark, rats skittered, their tiny claws scratching at unseen things. Twice, they passed more of the infected slumped in the dark, twitching and sniffing. Both times, Logan held up a fist, forcing the others to stop. They stood motionless, silent, until the shadows moved no more.

Riley muttered, “This is fucked, this is so fucked,” under his breath. Logan shot him a sharp look over her shoulder. He fell silent, biting his lip, tail tucked between his legs.

At last, the tunnel sloped downward and opened into a larger chamber. A heavy metal door stood at the far end, its surface scuffed and streaked with what looked like green moss. Above it, bolted to the concrete wall, was a faded enamel sign: the LA Metro system logo, worn but unmistakable.

They stopped in front of it, all four staring. The sound of their breathing seemed to bounce back at them twice as loud.

“That’s it,” Rick said quietly, pistol angled low but ready. “The station should be just beyond this.”

Logan pressed her hands against the cold steel of the door, feeling the vibration of something distant beyond. She didn’t open it yet. Instead, she pressed her ear up against it to try and listen for what, if anything was on the other side of the door.

Alex’s tail flicked nervously. Riley swallowed hard. The logo loomed above them like a warning.

After 30 seconds, Logan pulled her ear back from the door and looked to Rick. Rick looked back at her, and nodded. He reached for the large metal lever of a door handle, wrapped his fingers around it, and pushed. He gritted his teeth as the heavy door refused to budge at first, but after another push, it started to whine as it’s ungreased hinges started to move. The hinges screamed but then gave way, flooding the chamber with pale, fluorescent light that almost blinded them.

It took a few seconds for their eyes to adjust to the light, but once they did, they stepped inside the subway station one by one—and froze. It was empty. The tiled floor gleamed, surprisingly spotless compared to the gore and grime they had crawled through. Benches were overturned but clean, the walls scrubbed white. It was like stepping through the gates of heaven, or at least Hollywood’s depiction of it.

The bull exhaled, his shoulders easing for the first time in hours. "Aren’t we’re lucky," he muttered, lowering his pistol slightly. He turned his head back to the others with the hint of a smile—

‘BANG!’

The crack of a gunshot shattered the silence. Rick’s neck burst open in a violent spray of blood, the impact throwing him back a few steps. His eyes went wide, confusion frozen on his face as he staggered, hand pressed to the hole that kept gushing red between his fingers. A wet gasp rattled in his throat. Then he dropped to his knees, pistol clattering across the tiles, and collapsed flat on the floor. Blood spread beneath him in a dark, unstoppable pool, as he weakly held his hand at the gushing hole in his neck.

“Rick!” Alex screamed, her voice breaking as she stumbled forward.

Riley ducked after letting out a loud “FUCK!”

Up ahead, half-hidden behind a pillar, a uniformed German Shepherd police officer leveled a smoking sidearm at them. His eyes were wild, bloodshot, his uniform ripped in spots and streaked with sweat and blood in others. “Stay back!” he barked, voice cracking. “This is my station! My safe zone!”

Before Alex could react, Logan moved. She dove for Rick’s pistol and came up firing in one swift motion. Three shots in quick succession.

‘BANG!’

‘BANG!’

‘BANG!’

They echoed like thunder. The officer’s head snapped back after the third shot, the back of his skull bursting in a spray of blood and bone that painted the tiles. He collapsed bonelessly to the floor. His limbs twitched and spasmed as a crimson halo spread around him.

The only sound after that was the sound of bullet casings clattering across the station floor as Logan lowered the gun.

Then it was silence again, save for the slow and soft gargling of blood from Rick.

‘Gllccckkkrrkkk.’

“No, no, no, Rick. Stay with me, stay with me.” Alex was already at his side, dropping hard to her knees. Her hands pressed desperately against the hole in his neck, but the blood poured between her fingers, hot and fast, pumping with every faltering beat of his heart. Her fur turned red, her arms soaked as she tried to seal the wound. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you—don’t you leave me.”

Rick’s eyes rolled, unfocused, his body twitching as he gasped wetly. Alex leaned down closer, her forehead almost touching his, sobbing as she pushed harder. She could feel him slipping, like trying to hold back a tide with her small hands. “You’re our shield, you can’t—” her words broke into a sob. “You’ve always been here. Always. Don’t do this to me.”

His hand jerked once, grazing her wrist, then slid limply back to the tile. His chest hitched, once, twice… then stopped.

“No! No, Rick!” Alex’s cry tore through the empty station. She shook him, as if she could jolt life back into him. “You promised me! You promised you’d always have my back!” She kept pressing, frantic, her claws digging into his fur, but the blood kept spilling, unstoppable. His eyes were open, staring at her, but nothing really looked back.

She bent over him fully then, her sobs wracking her body, hot tears streaming down her muzzle and mixing with the blood. The pool of blood continued to grow, the air filled with the copper stench of his life pouring away. She pressed her face against his chest, choking out broken pleas between sobs. “Please… please don’t go. Not you. Not you.”

Riley pressed into the wall, tears streaking down his muzzle, his whole body trembling. “Oh God… oh God…” he muttered over and over, his voice a weak, broken record.

Logan finally stepped closer, crouching down. Her blue eyes were steady, cold, though her voice carried a quieter tone than usual. She gently pried Alex’s blood-slick fingers from Rick’s ruined throat. “He’s gone.”

Alex resisted, clawing back toward him, but Logan’s grip was iron. At last, the tigress sagged forward, her sobs echoing across the pristine, spotless station that now bore the stain of Rick’s sacrifice. The man who had guarded her for years—through stalkers, crowds, threats, chaos—had fallen not to the dead, but to a single bullet from a Los Angeles pig. So much for protect and serve.

Riley slid down the wall, burying his face in his hands, his whole body shaking. He muttered broken apologies under his breath, as if he owed Rick something he could never pay back. His voice was thin, desperate. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

Logan, a little less warm, yanked the tigress away from her fallen guard. “Alex. Let go.”

Alex shook her head violently, clutching Rick tighter. “No. He’s still—he could still—I can still help him.”

Logan’s jaw tightened. She let go of Alex, stood up, and raised the pistol in her hand at Rick’s lifeless body on the floor. “I’m sorry, Alex. We can’t risk it.”

Alex’s tear-streaked face shot up, horrified. “LOGAN WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!?”

Riley watched in horror from his pillar. “Jesus Christ, Logan.”

The raccoon’s grip on the pistol was steady, but her breathing slowed. Her finger rested on the frame, trembling just once before lowering toward the trigger. Each millimeter stretched into an eternity. Alex saw it move — slow and unstoppable — and the world narrowed to that single motion.

“LOGAN!!! NO!!!” Alex shrieked, got up on her feet, and lunged at her, but Logan shifted her weight, holding her off with one arm without ever breaking aim.

Her finger curled.

The click of the trigger’s take-up was louder than any gunshot.

‘Click.’

And then she pulled.

‘BANG.’

The bullet punched through Rick’s skull. His body jerked once, then sagged into true stillness. The sound echoed through the spotless station.

Alex screamed, shoving at Logan, her voice raw and breaking. “You didn’t have to! He wasn’t bit—he wasn’t one of them!”

Logan holstered the gun slowly, her expression unreadable. “He’s not coming back. And we can’t take chances. Not with this.”

The silence that followed was unbearable. Riley prayed quietly against the wall. Alex cradled Rick’s ruined head, her tears falling onto his blood-soaked fur. Logan walked over to the cop’s dead body across the station and picked up his gun and ammo, almost completely unphased. She calculated the risk, made a decision. One that cut through what little hope Alex and Riley had left.

Then—

“Los Angeles! Are you ready to dance?”

The voice blared overhead with artificial brightness, echoing across the bloodstained tile. Alex froze.

It was her.

Her voice, recorded, gleeful, booming across the empty station like a ghost from a world that didn’t exist anymore.

“I’m Alex Marx the Spot! Get ready to make your Marx at the next train stop! See you at the show!”

The cheer in her voice clashed grotesquely with the scene around them — Rick’s body, Alex’s bloodied hands, Riley’s whispered prayers. The words bounced off the sterile walls like a cruel joke.

Alex staggered back a step, claws curling into her palms. Her mouth moved before her brain caught up.

Riley’s muzzle hung open. “What the fuck…”

Logan’s jaw tightened. Her eyes swept the ceiling, pistol slowly raising. “It’s automated,” she said. “System still thinks trains are running.”

The speakers crackled again, as if to mock them:

“The Red Line to North Hollywood will arrive in two minutes. Please stand clear of the platform edge.”

A beat.

Then — with just a hint of residual cheer:

“See you at the show!”

With both pistols in hand, Logan walked back to Alex, Riley, and Rick’s corpse and watched as Alex brushed her fingers over the bull’s eyelids to close them. She waited a moment before she spoke and gestured for them to keep moving.

“Get up, I know where we can hole up for a few days.”

---

Present Day.

Alex’s Beverly Hills Residence. First Floor. Kitchen.

Alex clutched the counter with both hands, the cool marble wet under her bloody grip. She gagged again, body wracked by violent heaves until nothing but bile came out. Her whole frame trembled, sweat soaking the fur along her neck and shoulders, sticky with blood that wasn’t all hers. The shotgun still dangled from her shoulder, heavy, reeking of cordite and gore. And the axe was holstered in one of her beltloops that survived the attack from Melvin.

“Hhhhyyyyuuuuughhhh!”

She spat into the sink, chest heaving, eyes stinging. The copper stench clung to her tongue and coated her nostrils. No matter how much she spat or gagged, it wouldn’t leave. She flicked the faucet on with a trembling wrist, letting water run over the sink to wash away the blood and vomit. She was surprised when it worked and smiled a little bit as the water splashed pushed the mess down the drain.

The tigress glanced down at her reflection in the chrome faucet—her own face staring back, fur matted and striped with blood. Her shredded clothes hung off her in tatters, clinging wetly to her chest. Her green eyes looked too wide, too sharp, not like her own. She almost didn’t recognize herself.

Her feet drifted toward the refrigerator. She yanked it open and blinked in surprise at the faint glow of the interior light. The solar panels on the roof had kept the essentials alive, even through the nightmare. Cold air rolled out, carrying the sterile scent of plastic and chilled produce. Rows of glass bottles still stood neatly on the shelf. She grabbed one—VOSS water, frosted glass beading with condensation—and twisted the cap with blood-stained fingers. The crack of the seal echoed in her ears like good music and she purred. She raised it to her lips, drank deep, and let the icy water rinse away the bile in her throat. For a fleeting moment, the taste was so clean, so ordinary, so yum.

Her hands shook as she lowered the bottle. Behind her, the atrium was a ruin of feathers, glass, and Melvin. The smell was thick enough to taste with every breath. She closed her eyes and leaned against the counter. Every muscle screamed for her to run, to go back, but her legs wouldn’t obey.

She forced herself to breathe. To focus. She had survived Melvin. But the house still creaked with noises above—groans, the scrape of claws across tile. The dead were still here.

And she still had to find what she came for.

Alex’s hands trembled on the shotgun as she left the kitchen, the blood stained glass VOSS bottle left sweating on the counter behind her. Her arms still ached and shook from the fight with Melvin. Her fur was crusted with blood, torn in places where claws had raked. She could feel the weight of the house pressing down on her — her house — but now a maze of shadows and corpses.

She climbed the floating staircase again, each step groaning under her weight. The glass balustrade was cracked and jagged from her fall earlier, glittering like ice. As she ascended, she forced her fingers to grip the shotgun tighter. Her claws dug into the stock. Her ears flicked at every distant thump, every groan carried through the house’s otherwise dead silence.

Halfway up, her tail bristled. She smelled them before she saw them — rot, piss, that meat-sweet stench of infection. Then the sound came.

“Hhhhhhhuuuuuaahhhhhh.”

A groan. Then another. Then seven shadows emerged at the end of the hall.

Her heart skipped a few beats.

They were all different, but all dead. A kangaroo in shredded gym shorts, half his jaw gone. A dalmatian still in a staff polo, paws black with dried blood. A weasel in glittering merch, Alex’s own face still stretched across the shirt, now soaked red. Behind them, a bear — massive, lumbering — his muzzle split down the middle. Each one snarled as they scented her.

They charged.

Alex’s breath hitched. She snapped the shotgun up, firing before she even thought.

‘BOOM.’

The kangaroo’s chest vaporized, ribs shredding open in a spray of gore that spattered across the wall. It collapsed twitching, but the others surged forward, their snarls blending into one endless roar. Her ears rang. Her chest heaved.

She fired again.

‘BOOM.’

The dalmatian’s head exploded, shards of skull and strings of brain spattering across the hallway. Its body collapsed like a marionette with cut strings.

She swung to the weasel, teeth bared, and pulled the trigger.

‘CLICK.’

Her heart froze. Empty. No more shells.

“Shit!” she hissed, tossing the useless shotgun aside. Her eyes darted. The axe in her belt loop. She reached for it just as the weasel slammed into her, teeth snapping. They tumbled together, claws raking across her back.

“GET OFF ME!” she shrieked, grabbing a lamp and driving it into the weasel’s chest until the jagged base snapped ribs and spilled gore. It collapsed in a twitching heap of mince.

The bear came next.

Its bulk smashed into her, throwing her down the hall. Her back hit the floor with a teeth-rattling crack. She gasped, clawing backward as the bear stomped closer, drool and blood dripping in long strands from its ruined muzzle. It bellowed — a sound so deep it shook her ribs.

“HHHRRRRRAAAAAAHHHH!”

“SHIT!” Alex screamed and grabbed the axe just in time. She rolled sideways, wood splintering under its strike, then swung up in a wild arc.

‘CRUNCH.’

The axe buried itself in its thigh. Black-red blood exploded over her face, hot. The bear howled, stumbling sideways, but its clawed hand swatted her like a toy. Pain flared as she slammed against the wall. She coughed blood, ribs aching like there was glass inside her.

Her vision swam. The bear loomed again.

She ripped the axe free and, with a raw scream, swung upward into its gut. The blade tore flesh, spilling coils of steaming entrails onto the floor. The smell hit her like a punch. The bear staggered, tried to clutch its insides, then toppled sideways with a crash that shook the hallway.

But there was no time to breathe. The last three came together — a fox, a wolf, a Dobermann — their limbs jerking with unnatural speed.

The wolf struck first, leaping with claws extended. Alex dropped to her knees, the swipe cutting the air above her head. She swung the axe across the canine’s chest in one smooth arc. His ribs snapped, flesh peeling as blood sprayed her muzzle. He collapsed in two twitching halves.

The fox came next, his claws tearing into her stomach. She screamed, hot blood spilling through her fingers as she clutched the wound. He lunged for her throat. She rammed her forehead into his snout, bone cracking. The fox reeled back, howling. She brought the axe down on his skull. Once. Twice. Until his brains painted the floor.

The Dobermann was last.

She was fast, too fast. She barreled into her, sending her sprawling. Her axe slid from her hand, spinning out of reach. The Dobermann landed on top, jaws snapping an inch from her face, the black and rust dog’s laugh-groan rattling in her ears.

“NO!” Alex shrieked. She clawed at her face, raked at her eyes. The Doberman pressed her claws into the tigress’s thighs. Pain exploded, white-hot. She howled, fists pounding its skull. Her fingers closed on something sharp — a shard of glass. She rammed it into its eye with all her strength.

The Dobermann shrieked, blood and pulp exploding across Alex’s chest. The zombified woman thrashed wildly, clawing her arms, before finally collapsing beside her, twitching. Alex let out a big sigh and laid there, soaked, broken.

The hall was quiet again.

The tiger’s arms burned, her breath rasped like sandpaper, her whole body screamed at her to stop. She forced herself upright, stumbling toward the end of the hall.

The door to her studio loomed at the end of the hall. Her safe place. Her sanctum. She stumbled toward it, the axe slipping in her tired, blood-slick grip and falling to the floor.

Her hands shook as she touched the handle. The door gave, opening smoothly.

Inside—silence. No blood. No gore. No ruin.

It was as if the world outside hadn’t touched this one room. Her home studio stood exactly as she had left it before the show. The leather chair still tucked neatly against the desk. A scattering of pens beside a mug that had dried coffee staining the bottom. Posters of her idols still lined the walls, corners curling slightly from the California heat. The smell of faint lavender from a long-dead diffuser lingered in the air. The power still worked in there, too. Essentials hooked up to solar.

Her knees buckled as she stepped inside. Her paw shook as she reached for the steel cabinet in the corner. She pulled it open, breath catching. And there it was—her life. Jewel cases with her handwriting scrawled across them. Hard drives lined up in neat rows. Her unfinished songs. Her unreleased albums. Everything she had fought so hard to create.

Her palms hovered, trembling. Then she grabbed them, clutched them against her chest. A sob tore loose, half laughter, half wince.

“Hah-Hah… There you guys are…”

She pressed the cracked CD case to her cheek, smiling through tears. She had it. After everything, she had it.

But her strength gave out.

Her body swayed. Her vision blurred. She sank to her knees among the cables and scattered sheet music, clutching her work as if it might anchor her to life. The world tilted.

And then the voices came—Logan’s voice, sharp and cold as ever.

“Don’t do this, Alex. It isn’t worth it.”

“I have to.”

“You’ll get yourself killed.”

“You don’t understand. It’s my life’s work.”

She saw Logan’s scowl, the furrow between her brows deeper than ever. But behind that mask was something else. A tremor in her voice she hadn’t heard before. Concern. Real, genuine concern.

“And this is your life, Alex. Don’t be stupid.”

Her last memory was the way Logan had said that word—not as an insult, but almost as a plea. Like Alex’s life mattered more than the damn hard drives.

The room dimmed around her. The CDs and drives slipped from her loosened grasp, clattering softly against the polished floor. She slumped sideways, eyes half-lidded, breaths shallow.

The last thing she heard was her own heart hammering in her ears, slowing. The faint scent of lavender. And Logan’s voice:

“Don’t be stupid.”

Then, nothing.

---

Four Days Earlier.

Underground Metro Mall, Greater Los Angeles Area. Three Days After the Outbreak.

The mall smelled of dust, old perfume, and faintly of Krispy Kreme glazed donuts. Its large halls were half-lit by flickering fluorescent strips, powered by the last scraps of backup generators. Posters for sales and fast fashion hung limp, edges curling from damp. The escalators were frozen in place, teeth of their steps clogged shoelaces and abandoned purses. What had once been a bustling shopping center was now their bunker.

They had supplies. Food scavenged from shuttered restaurants and storage rooms. Bottled water, pallets of soda, even a stash of cheap whiskey from a liquor store. On paper, they were safe. Fed. Sheltered. But survival and living were two very different things.

Riley sat cross-legged on the cold tile, chewing a protein bar that tasted like ass. His fur was oily, unwashed, his laugh long gone. He stared at the wall more often than he spoke, sometimes mouthing words no one could hear. Every so often, his eyes flicked toward Logan and Alex, tension plain across his muzzle, as if he was waiting for the next argument. He stopped praying, too, ever since Logan shot Rick to stop him from turning.

Logan perched on the edge of a fountain that no longer flowed, arms crossed, her gaze sharp and brittle. The raccoon’s posture was still rigid, still professional, but shadows dragged under her eyes. She looked a little thinner, her tail twitching against the tile like a metronome keeping time with her restless thoughts. She carried herself as though the weight of every choice pressed down on her spine. She had swapped out her torn suit for a camo t-shirt and light green cargo pants she scavenged from a Bass Pro Shop.

Alex sat apart, near the entrance of a darkened shoe store. The faint glow of a battery lantern painted her fur in a flat, sickly light. Her green eyes, normally so alive with fire, were vacant, staring through the cracked plastic case she rolled between her paws. The empty case clicked faintly each time she turned it over, like the tick of a clock marking wasted days. Her clothes still carried stains she hadn’t managed to wash out. The smell of blood seemed permanent. She didn’t want to take fresh clothes from the stores, it felt wrong to steal, still.

Finally, she spoke, her voice hoarse and thin. “I’m going back.”

Logan’s head snapped up. “What?”

“My house.” Alex’s jaw was tight, her paws trembling against tile floor. “I’m going back for my drives. For my music. Everything I ever made is there. I need it.”

The raccoon’s eyes narrowed. “Absolutely not. It’s suicide. You barely made it out of the Forum alive. Going back to Beverly Hills now is throwing your life away.”

The tigress’s eyes lifted to meet hers. The fire was back now, but it burned with something else. Resentment. “You shot him.” Her words hit like stones. “Rick. You didn’t even give me a second. You didn’t even let me try.”

Logan stiffened, but her tone stayed level. “He was gone.”

“He was our friend!” Alex’s voice cracked, her claws digging into the case until it bent. “He was with me for years. He gave everything to protect me, to keep me safe. And you—” She swallowed hard, the tears stinging but refusing to fall. “You ended him like he was nothing.”

“He was going to turn,” Logan said flatly. But her voice wavered ever so slightly. “You know what happens if we take chances. If I hadn’t done it, maybe we wouldn’t be here.”

“If you hadn’t,” Alex spat, “at least I would have had one more second with him. He deserved that.”

The silence that followed made Riley want to rip his ears off. Even the flicker of the lights seemed to dim. The hyena’s breathing was shallow, his eyes darting between them, but he didn’t dare speak.

Alex stood, fists trembling, her tail lashing. Her voice was low but sharp enough to cut. “I’m going. With or without you.”

Logan stepped forward, her mask cracking for just an instant. “Alex—” The words caught in her throat, something unsaid dying on her tongue.

Alex shook her head violently, turning away. Her footsteps echoed through the hollow mall, a sound that rang louder than any scream.

Logan’s voice followed her into the dark, sharper now, tinged with something close to fear. “Don’t do this, Alex. It isn’t worth it.”

“I have to.” Alex didn’t turn back.

“You’ll get yourself killed.”

“You don’t understand,” Alex said, her voice breaking. “It’s my life’s work!”

“And this is your life, Alex. Don’t be stupid.” Logan’s reply cracked through the air like a whip, but Alex kept walking, toward one of the clothing stores. It wasn’t stealing if the society that made stealing wrong was no more.

Riley finally whispered, almost to himself, “She really means it.”

“She’s not stupid.” Logan sat back on the fountain’s edge, her claws digging crescents into her arms. For once, the business mask she wore didn’t make her look strong—it made her look small.

Above them, the neon signs over shuttered storefronts flickered half-heartedly, advertisements for shoes no one would wear, food no one would eat. The mall had everything they needed to survive. But it was all finite. They’d have to leave eventually.

Logan knew that. But she wanted them all to be ready before they did.

---

Three Days Later.

Underground Metro Mall, Greater Los Angeles Area.

Seven Days After the Outbreak. Three Hours Before Dawn.

The mall was suffocating in its silence. The generators hummed faintly, but most of the lights had gone out. The fire escape doors loomed in front of Alex as she stared at them.  She stood there, breath trembling in her chest, her eyes glistening in the dim glow. For a moment she hesitated, ears twitching at the quiet—Logan and Riley asleep somewhere behind her. For a heartbeat, she almost turned back.

Almost.

Her jaw clenched. She looked toward the fire axe in its glass case by the exit doors. Her hands trembled as she pulled a crumpled shirt from her bag, wrapping it tightly around her knuckles. One deep breath, then she swung. The glass shattered with a muffled crack, shards sprinkling onto the tile. She reached in through the cloth, careful not to cut herself, and pulled the heavy axe free. The weight of it settled into her grip nicely. It was heavier than it looked, which she figured was a good thing. More heft, more cleft.

She glanced over her shoulder at the dark mall behind her for a while, but not long enough for her to change her mind. After a deep breath, she pushed open the emergency exit, stepped into the shadows, and was gone.

Hours later, Riley stirred awake, rubbing at his eyes. The first thing he noticed was the empty space where Alex had been lying. Then the open door and the broken glass case beside it. His ears flattened. “Logan…?”

Logan was already sitting up, rigid, her gaze locked on the emptiness. She rose to her feet, and though her face was carved from stone, something flickered in her eyes for a second before she buried it. “You were right. She did mean it.”

Riley’s voice cracked. “She took the axe.”

Logan’s jaw tightened. “And we’re going after her.”

--

Present Day.

Alex’s Beverly Hills Residence.

The sun was sinking low when Logan and Riley walked up to the mansion gates. The once-pristine white walls glowed orange under the dying light, casting long shadows across the driveway. The gate was still twisted around the wreck of the Porsche, the bulldog’s corpse slumped inside, only barely moving. The stench of iron and rot wafted toward them in nauseating waves.

Riley gagged, covering his nose with his paw. “Oh my God… what the fuck happened here?”

“Stay sharp,” Logan muttered, her voice clipped and cold. She slipped through the biggest crack in the gate, pistol raised, her eyes scanning every corner. Her usual calm mask was fixed in place, but her tail twitched — a crack in her composure Riley had never seen before.

They crept up the driveway, boots crunching on broken glass and debris. The silence was unnatural, heavy, broken only by the breeze rattling the palms overhead. The air reeked of blood, fur, and old smoke, and somewhere far off came the faint moan of a lone walker. Logan’s piercing eyes flicked to the carport — Alex’s convertible was gone.

Inside, the silence deepened to a suffocating weight. The front door hung ajar, claw marks gouged deep into its wood. Logan pushed it open with her shoulder, the creak echoing loud.

‘Cwwwwwrrrrrrrk.’

She stepped in first, pistol up, Riley clutching the back of her jacket like a child, his pistol tucked into his pants pocket.

The foyer was devastation. Blood streaked across the marble, thick and dried, dragged in handprints toward the stairs. Logan’s jaw tightened, her stomach twisting at the sight of feathers and stuffing from the couch scattered across the atrium floor, now mingled with broken glass.

Then Riley’s eyes landed on Melvin. Or what was left of him. His body was twisted and split open, half his chest missing, his skull reduced to pulp. His teeth were bared in a grotesque grin, as if he had died mid-snarl.

“Holy shit,” Riley whispered, stumbling back until he hit the wall. “That’s Melvin. She fought him?” His voice cracked, rising higher.

Logan crouched briefly, studying the remains, her face unreadable. “Looks like she won. That’s a good sign.” Her voice was steady, but Riley swore he heard a faint tremor of worry beneath the iron.

On the kitchen counter, a single VOSS bottle sat open. Blood smeared the lip, pawprints staining the glass. Logan’s throat tightened, but her face stayed iron. Riley saw it though, and swallowed hard.

“Do you think—do you think she—?” he started, voice thin.

“She’s alive,” Logan snapped, sharper than she meant to. The sound cracked through the silence, making Riley flinch. He didn’t argue, but his wide eyes never left the bottle as they moved toward the stairs.

The second floor was worse. The hallway reeked of copper. Corpses sprawled in heaps, throats torn out, skulls cracked like eggs. Blood smeared the walls in long streaks and handprints trailing off into nothing. The glass railing had collapsed, shards still glittering faintly below, reflecting the dying sunlight that filtered in through shattered windows. Each step echoed hollowly.

Riley’s voice cracked. “Jesus Christ… she fought them. All of them…” His arms shook as he hugged himself, eyes darting wildly from one corpse to another. His hands finally reached for his pistol. “What if she—what if she didn’t make it through this?”

Logan said nothing, only tightened her grip on the pistol and pushed on. She didn’t want to jinx it.

Near the end of the hall, a shotgun and the axe from the mall lay abandoned, their handles smeared with blood. Spent shells littered the ground around them. Logan paused, staring down at the weapons, she gulped once before she forced herself forward. Riley, however, bent quickly, scooping them both up with shaking hands. He slung the shotgun against his back, gripped the axe tight, and hurried to catch up. He wasn’t going to leave Alex’s weapons behind. Logan taught him better than that.

The closer they came to the studio, the heavier the air grew. Each step down the corridor felt stretched, unbearable, as if time itself resisted their advance. The floor was sticky underfoot. Their boots made faint sucking sounds as they lifted free. Logan’s ears twitched at every creak of the house settling. The walls seemed to close in, the shadows long and hungry.

---

Eight Months Ago.
Kia Forum. Main Stage. 08:00 PM

Darkness.

Then light.

The roar of the crowd slammed into her chest like a second heartbeat. A tidal wave of voices rose in perfect unison:

“Alex! Alex! Alex!”

Tens of thousands of fans, a sea of glowsticks and LED cat ears, shimmered beneath her. The air was hot, electric, tasting of sweat, perfume, and burnt sugar from concessions. Smoke curled from the pyros. The bass thumped like thunder under her paws, rattling the stage and her bones with every beat.

But seconds before she stepped out, crouched behind the curtain, she had been trembling. Her paws clutched the mic too tightly, claws biting into the metal. Even after years of sold-out tours, her throat had dried, her stomach knotted, her mind racing with doubts she’d never admit aloud. What if I can’t hit the note? What if they stop chanting? What if tonight is the night it all collapses?

Then the spotlight had hit her. The fear melted. She became someone else.

Spotlights crisscrossed the Forum like swords of light, catching her sequined bodysuit, making her stripes flash like molten gold. Her dancers whirled around her in sharp, precise arcs, every move syncing perfectly with the music. She spun, tail whipping the air, claws catching glints of light that shot across the arena like sparks.

The fans screamed louder, surging forward, their hands raised like worshipers at a temple. Glowsticks pulsed in rhythm with the strobes, a thousand tiny stars flickering in time with her song.

“Alex! Alex! Alex!”

Her whole body hummed. This was the moment she lived for — the rush of their voices in her veins, louder than any drug. Every lyric was a vow, every dance step a strike of power. She prowled down the catwalk, hips swaying, her mic steady in her paw. Her voice soared over the synths — clear, powerful, commanding. She was untouchable, divine, and the Forum was her kingdom.

“I’m not scared to go, I’m collateral!”

“Knocked out, love will be the death of me.”

She loved it. All of it. The sweat burning in her eyes. The ache in her chest as she pushed her lungs to their limit. The heat of the pyros flashing so hot she could feel her fur prickle. And most of all, the chant of her name — proof that she mattered, that she was adored, that she had carved herself into something eternal.

And yet—

Something shifted.

The chant warped, the syllables cracking, overlapping, splintering into chaos. The scream of thousands slipped off-beat. What once was her name became jagged shrieks.

Hands clawed at her again — but not in worship. Fingers curled like talons, desperate, grasping. Their eyes rolled white in the strobes. Faces melted into masks of terror. Blood sprayed across the front rows. Glowsticks fell into the aisles, trampled under boots slick with blood.

The music thundered on, but it no longer matched the rhythm of her heartbeat.

She turned, mic still in hand, but the dancers were gone. The stage lights faltered. Shadows loomed where her crew should have been. In the pit, bodies writhed together, tearing, convulsing. The chant of her name continued.

Her ears twitched. Through the noise, the voices pierce the chaos. They sounded more monstrous. For the first time, the chants screaming her name made her scared, not loved.

“ALEX!”

“ALEX!”

“ALEX!”

“ALEX!”

Then the voices went from thousands to just two. Two voices that she recognized. Voices that made her feel safe, adored, loved.

“Alex.”

“Alex.”

“Alex.”

Her eyelids fluttered.

“Wake up!”

---

Present Day.

Alex’s Beverly Hills Residence. Second Floor. Recording Studio.

Finally, they stood at the door to Alex’s studio. Its padded surface was streaked with bloody handprints. Logan’s hand hovered just above the handle, her knuckles white, her breath caught tight in her throat. She didn’t move.

Riley swallowed hard. His whisper was thin and trembling. “What if she’s gone?”

Logan didn’t answer. Her silence stretched, taut as a suspension bridge support wire. For the first time since Riley had met her, she looked… unsure. She drew a slow, shaking breath and forced the handle down.

The smell hit first. Blood. Sweat. And strangely — lavender. The faint scent clung like a ghost. And then—

“Alex!” Logan’s voice tore out before she could stop it.

The tiger was slumped against the console, her fur matted, clothes in tatters, drives clutched against her chest like a lifeline. Her head lolled, her chest rising shallowly. For one horrific second, she looked gone.

Riley gasped, hand clapping over his mouth as he followed Logan into the room. “Oh God—Alex…”

Logan dropped to her knees, paws cupping Alex’s face. “Alex. Alex… Alex.. Wake up.”

Then Alex stirred. Her eyelids fluttered, lips parting. A weak breath rattled out.

The raccoon’s mask shattered. Her eyes glistened, her voice cracked. “Thank God, you’re alive… you stupid, stupid girl.”

Alex blinked blearily, a loopy smile tugging at her muzzle. “Heeeey… Logan…” Alex greeted her with a faded and loopy smile. “… Say it. I know you’re dying to.”

Logan blinked, startled. “Say what?”

“I told you so,” Alex whispered, a weak laugh bubbling out. She patted the drives and CDs against her chest. “See? Worth it.”

Logan pressed her forehead to Alex’s, tears spilling into the tigress’s bloodied fur and laughed. “You’re impossible.”

Riley stepped closer, trembling. His eyes scanned Alex’s shredded clothes, the blood soaking her fur. His voice cracked. “Logan… check. Was she bit?”

Logan pulled back, her gaze sweeping Alex’s body with practiced precision. She lifted the tatters of her shirt, her hands firm but gentle. Scratches. Blood. Bruises. But no bite marks. Her shoulders sagged with relief. “No bites.”

Alex giggled faintly, delirious. “Told you. Not that stupid.”

The raccoon wrapped her arms around her, pulling her tight. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” she whispered, voice raw. It wasn’t Logan the businesswoman, the manager — it was Logan, Alex’s friend.  She held Alex like she never wanted to let go.

With Riley’s help, Logan eased Alex onto her shaky feet. She clutched the drives like a child with a toy, leaning into Logan’s steady frame. Riley slipped under her other arm, the axe still in his hand, his fear giving way to determination as they guided her out of the studio, past the corpses.

On the way down the hall, Riley glanced at the weapons in his grip and huffed, shaking his head. His voice cracked with disbelief. “Hey, Alex?”

“Why the hell do you even have a shotgun in your house?”

Alex swayed, blinking loopy, and managed a crooked grin. “Stalkers… Logan took me to Walmart to get it.”

She laughed, weak and shaky, but real. Riley stared. Logan shook her head, a small incredulous smile breaking through her tears.

And Alex clung to that laugh, letting it echo faintly through the blood-soaked halls as they made their way out.

---

Art by TF8

What did you think of the story? Let me know in the comments below! It really helps a lot to have your feedback! Thank you!