Betrayal When Zombies Besiege the City

1
The men broke when they saw the last child in the safe room torn apart by a zombie while still alive.
Captain! You said she was just a jealous liar! You told us to guard you and Serena during the fireworks!
So why is my month-old son in pieces?!
Jason's face turned deathly pale. I watched, my heart bleeding.
In my past life, during the zombie attack, my husband Jason took all the guards to watch fireworks with his childhood sweetheart, Serena. I screamed myself hoarse, calling them back, and saved everyone.
But angry about missing the show, Serena stormed out alone and was torn to pieces by zombies. After killing the horde, Jason held her remaining leg bone, silent.
That silence lasted until the day I gave birth. Then, he chopped off my limbs alive and fed me to the zombies. He'd watch them eat me, heal me, and repeat it, over and over.
"You venomous bitch," he'd snarled. "You killed her. So your death will be a thousand times worse."
When I opened my eyes, I was backback to the day the zombies first attacked.

I was reborn the moment the sound of their guttural roars echoed through the forest.
On pure instinct, I shot out of my room and threw myself at the console in the broadcast center.
"Attention, everyone! Attention!" My voice crackled over the speakers. "A massive zombie horde is approaching! All personnel, evacuate to the safe room immediately!"
The words had barely left my lips when the first terrified screams erupted outside.
"Move!"
I grabbed the machete from my belt, trying to herd the panicked crowd while simultaneously hacking down the first few infected that broke through the perimeter. The retreat was a chaotic nightmare. I scooped up a few children who were frozen in terror and shoved them through the heavy steel doors of the safe room.
CLANG!
The lock slammed shut, sealing us off from the hell outside, if only for a moment.
The survivors, still reeling from the shock, collapsed to the floor, their sobs echoing in the enclosed space. A woman clutching an infant grabbed my arm, her eyes wide with panic. "Aria you have to find Captain Jason! Get them back here to save us!"
I closed my eyes, forcing myself to deliver the cruel truth. "Jason took the entire security team to the summit on the edge of town. He's protecting Serena while she watches the fireworks."
The room exploded.
"Fireworks? Now?"
"He's insane! He left us all here to die for her?"
Just then, a deafening sound reverberated through the room.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The steel door shuddered with each impact, the center beginning to buckle and warp. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before it gave way.
We couldn't wait for him.
"Maybe maybe we don't need them," I said, a desperate idea forming. I turned to Jasons mother. "Mom! The electric fence! If we can activate the high-voltage grid, we can fry them!"
Her eyes lit up. "Yes! The fence!"
She quickly pulled out her comms device. With every eye in the room fixed on her, she made the call.
A moment later, Jasons voice came through, laced with annoyance. "Mom? What is it? I'm a little busy right now."
His mother swallowed her rage, her words coming in a rush. "Jason, the base is under attack! A whole horde! The safe room won't hold for much longer! You have to activate the perimeter fence, now!"
The air grew thick with tension.
"Are you kidding me?" he scoffed. "The power is being diverted to the summit lights. I can't spare a single watt. Do you want to ruin the mood for Serena's birthday?"
He actually laughed. A cold, dismissive sound.
"Is Aria whispering poison in your ear again? She's that jealous? I'm just watching some fireworks with Serena. Does she really have to stoop this low, getting you to lie for her just to drag me back?"
His mother was trembling with fury. "You foolish, pig-headed boy! Do you have any idea"
The line went dead. He had hung up on her.
A dead silence fell over the room, thick with despair.
"It's over," someone whispered. "We're really going to die here."
I stared at the dented door, my heart clenching. Could it be that even with a second chance, I couldn't change a single thing?
In that suffocating silence, his mother looked at me, her eyes hardening with resolve.
"I trained that security team myself!" she declared. "There's a service path up the back of the mountain. I'll go to them. They won't disobey a direct order from me! I'll bring them back!"
A flicker of hope ignited in my chest.
Without another word, she slipped out a side maintenance hatch. "Wait for me," was all she said before disappearing into the darkness.
An hour later, a jagged hole was torn in the main door. A rotten, skeletal hand snaked through the opening, reaching for the infant in the womans arms. The babys cry was cut short by a sickening crunch. The mother collapsed, her eyes instantly vacant.
As despair washed over us, a figure stumbled back through the side hatch.
It was his mother.
"Is the team back?" everyone asked at once.
She was covered in blood. "Quick! Block the breach!"
I rushed to support her. Her voice was a ragged whisper. "That bastard son of mine He barricaded every path. He set up defenses to make sure no one could interrupt her precious birthday."
Her eyes were red with a furious, helpless rage.
A chill crept up my spine, and I stumbled backward. Jason had been so determined to keep me away that he had blocked his own mother.
"No! We can't just give up!" I looked around at the terrified faces. "If we can't get our own team, we'll call for outside help!"
I scrambled to the emergency comms, frantically cycling through the frequencies for other nearby outposts. I finally got a response and quickly explained our situation, begging for aid.
There was a long pause on the other end.
"I'm sorry," the voice finally said. "We can't send help."
"An hour ago, we received a priority communication from Captain Jason himself. He warned us that someone at your base might be making a false distress call. His direct order was to disregard any and all requests for aid from your location tonight."
He had gone this far. To protect Serena's birthday party, he had proactively severed every lifeline, calculated every possibility, and sealed our tomb.
His mothers face went white. "This is Jasons mother. I'm begging you"
"Ma'am," the voice interrupted, still cold and professional, "the Captain was very specific. He said we should especially disregard any orders coming from you."
"He stated that unless you came to our gates in person to request aid, no assistance would be dispatched."
The line went dead again.
In person? A journey of dozens of miles through a sea of the dead? It was a suicide mission.
The breach in the door was temporarily patched, but we all knew it was a flimsy fix.
I put my arm around his mother. "Mom, I'll go with you."
I glanced at the fresh pool of blood on the floor, my voice hard as steel. "Everyone here is counting on us. If we stay, we die. If we go, there's a chance!"
She looked at me, a deep, searching gaze, and finally, she nodded.
We moved through the darkness, me supporting her as best I could. Her left arm was gone, torn clean off by a zombie. Blood still streamed from the wound.
"Just over this ridge we're almost there" she gasped.
From halfway up the mountain, we could see the distant lights of the neighboring outpost. Hope surged through us.
And then the world exploded.
A fireworka military-grade flaredetonated right in front of us. The shockwave threw us violently through the air.
Dazed, I looked up toward the summit and saw him. Jason, with his arm around Serena. His mocking voice boomed across the valley from a set of loudspeakers.
"Aria. I knew it. When playing the victim didn't work, you decided to try brute force, didn't you?"
His voice turned to ice.
"I knew you wouldn't give up on ruining Serena's birthday! I won't let you succeed!"
The explosions intensified, a deadly rain of light and fire.
"Mom, you have to tell him it's you!" I screamed.
His mother gathered all her remaining strength and yelled toward the summit. "JASON!"
For a moment, there was silence. Then, Jasons laughter, louder and more maniacal than before, echoed down the mountain. The distance was too great; he could only make out our silhouettes.
"Aria, you really will do anything to ruin this for her, won't you?" he shouted. "First you get my mother to lie for you on the phone, and now you've hired an actress? An amputee, no less! Did you really think I'd fall for that?"
His mother trembled with rage. "It is me, you fool! It's your mother! Can't you even recognize my voice?!"
For a split second, I saw a flicker of doubt on Jasons face.
But Serena immediately tugged on his sleeve, her voice trembling with manufactured hurt. "Jason I know Aria has never liked me. Maybe we should just cancel my birthday. We can go back." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "It's okay I'm used to it."
That was all it took. Jason's face hardened, his rage renewed. "Keep firing!" he commanded.
More shells rained down, completely cutting off our path. The moon hung high in the sky, a cold, indifferent witness.
"There's no time," his mother said, her grip tightening on my shoulder. "I'll draw their fire. You have to go! You have to get help back to them!"
She shoved me away from her. "They're all waiting for you!"
She began to stumble toward the summit. I scrambled after her, grabbing for her remaining arm. "Mom, no! They don't recognize you! They'll kill you!"
Jasons voice, colder than the grave, echoed from the peak.
"Aria, if you're so determined to die just to spoil Serena's night, then I'll be happy to oblige you!"
He shouldered a rocket launcher. The next second, a massive firework shell screamed toward me.
"Aria, look out!"
His mother threw herself at me, tackling me to the ground and shielding me with her broken body.
BOOM!
The explosion was deafening, a physical blow that nearly shattered my eardrums. A thick, hot spray of blood covered my face.
Her body went limp on top of me. Her back had been blown open, a gaping, cavernous wound. My hands trembled as I reached for her, feeling only the warm, sticky wetness. I shook her gently, but there was no response.
A raw, animal cry tore from my throat. "Mom!"
Serena's delicate voice floated down from the speakers.
"Aria, you should probably push the body off the cliff. Otherwise, the zombies will smell the blood and come for you, too."

2
Several of the guards on the summit had witnessed the whole thing, their faces etched with uncertainty.
A younger guard leaned toward his friend. "She she didn't look like she was faking it." He hesitated. "What if she was telling the truth? What if something really happened at the base?"
His friend cut him off. "Are you crazy? The captain would know if something was wrong. It's just her, being jealous of Serena again. You know how women get."
But the young guard persisted. "But what if? Our families are down there!"
A squad leader stepped in, his voice sharp. "The captain wouldn't risk our families. End of discussion."
A moment later, I was dragged roughly up to the summit. My body was a mess of cuts and bruises, caked in a mixture of blood and mud.
Serena approached, her face a perfect mask of concern. "Oh, Aria, you're bleeding so much. Here, let me help you."
She reached out to touch me.
"Don't touch me!" I snarled, slapping her hand away with enough force to make her stumble.
"Aria!" Jason roared. "Your pettiness knows no bounds! Serena is trying to be kind to you, and this is how you repay her?"
He stalked over and stomped on my pinky finger.
"It seems you'll never learn without a little punishment!"
A blinding, white-hot pain shot through my entire body. I curled into a ball on the ground, but my own agony was nothing. The people in the safe room they were still waiting.
I forced myself to look up, to meet Jasons eyes. "Jason," I said, each word a shard of glass. "The safe room is about to fall. Every minute you waste here, another person dies."
"Don't you hear them?" I pleaded, my voice cracking. "Don't you hear the zombies at the walls?"
At my words, Serena burst into tears. "Jason, I'm so sorry. It's all my fault. I shouldn't have had a birthday. I shouldn't even exist."
He pulled her into a protective embrace, his voice dripping with venom as he glared at me. "How long are you going to keep up this act, Aria? The base has the best defense system on the coast. How could it possibly"
I cut him off, despair turning my voice hollow. "All of your elite guards are here, protecting you and her. All the power for the electric fence has been rerouted here for your light show! Jason, you are going to regret this!"
At this, several guards exchanged uneasy glances.
"Captain, maybe maybe we should send someone to check?" the young guard asked tentatively.
An older guard beside him scoffed. "You must be new. She pulls stunts like this all the time to get at Miss Serena. This isn't the first time she's cried wolf."
"Yeah!" another chimed in. "Remember when she claimed Serena pushed her down the stairs?"
Jason's face grew even darker. "Take her! Tie her to that tree and let her think about what she's done!"
In his arms, a triumphant smirk flickered across Serena's face.
I fought with everything I had left. "Jason, if you don't go back now, everyone's familiesyour familywill be torn apart and eaten alive!"
My only answer was a vicious backhand across the face.
"The more you do this, Aria," he hissed, "the more I hate you."
Just as they dragged me toward the tree, it happened.
WEEEEEEEEEE
A blood-curdling siren screamed up from the base below. It was the level-one emergency alarm. The fail-safe.
It meant the safe room had been breached. No survivors.
Everyone froze.
The older guard who had been mocking me was the first to react. He stumbled to the edge of the cliff, his eyes wide with horror as he stared down at the base. "The primary alarm Oh God, the primary alarm! My wife my little girl they're in there!"
The young guard's face was sheet-white, his lips trembling.
In the dead silence, I looked at Jason, my voice barely a whisper.
"Do you hear that, Jason? They're all dead."
"This is the fireworks show you bought for Serena with all of their lives. Are you satisfied now?"
"Even your own mother, the woman you claimed to respect more than anyone you killed her, too."

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