By 6 PM, the sun had begun to bleed out behind the towers, leaving behind a bruised sky and long, crawling shadows across the complex. The last traces of natural light faded quickly, swallowed by broken streetlamps and flickering corridor bulbs. Night had returned and it brought silence so thick it felt alive.
Shivansh stood near the balcony door of A-603, his phone in one hand, a flashlight in the other. The building felt like a sealed bunker, reinforced with sofa cushions, bookshelves, and every last bit of cloth they had. But outside, the monsters were growing.
He had counted at least eleven infected from his own sixth-floor vantage point wandering between the parking shed and Tower B's outer wall. Some moved slowly, their limbs jerking like faulty machinery. Others dragged themselves in loops, smearing blood trails where they'd already limped hours earlier. One wore a security uniform Manoj's replacement, maybe its back hunched unnaturally as it pawed at the fence like it remembered opening it once.
Shivansh switched the torch on and blinked it toward Tower C. One blink. Pause. One blink again. Then one more.
Within seconds, from a window across the courtyard, Zoya replied.
One blink. Two. One.
The code was simple:
One = I'm alive
Two = I need help
Three = Infected near
He felt a strange thrill as the pattern held. It was working. Across the towers, other windows slowly began to flicker. Some were sloppy. Some too fast. But they were trying.
Inside the flat, Ankita watched silently, arms folded. Vedant scribbled down sequences and times like a mission log.
A sudden flash from Tower D caught Shivansh's eye. It was Mukul, using the tiny red LED light on his drone charger to blink a message. Shivansh squinted, then smiled faintly. It wasn't part of the code. Just a wave.
He replied with a steady flash.
Imran Qureshi's flat stayed dark, as always. But a moment later, a reflection appeared tiny, sharp. A mirror flash, bouncing sunlight from the last high-rise window. It was deliberate. Timed.
Shivansh blinked in return and texted the group chat.
Shivansh Sharma:"Imran's alive. Mirror used. We're syncing. Everyone flash every 30 minutes, on the hour and half hour."
Across the group, replies trickled in.
Zoya:"Got it."
Parth:"On standby. Tower A clear so far."
Rekha Sethi:"Niharika logging signals on paper. She's good with patterns."
Gurleen Kaur:"No flash from B-603. Might be gone. Not responding on chat either."
Mukul:"Drone offline. I'm reconfiguring a window camera. Night vision sucks."
The light in the sky faded fully now, leaving only the fractured glow of survivor torches and the eyes of the infected.
Because they had started to gather.
By 7:30 PM, nearly 100 zombies had made their way into the compound across the parking lot, into gym corridors, around stairwells, near the locked side gate. Some slammed themselves into grills, others twitched and sniffed the air like broken predators. One even climbed onto a car's bonnet and stayed there watching.
Shivansh lowered his flashlight.
"We need to finish this in one hour," he said quietly. "After that... we go fully dark. Lights out. Voices low."
"Why?" Vedant asked, chewing his lip.
"Because soon, they'll start listening." And across the darkness, dozens of silhouettes twitched at nothing. But they weren't deaf. The sky was black now. Not the inky, peaceful black of monsoon nights, but a dry, heavy void suffocating and starless. The apartment towers stood like silent tombs, windows shuttered, light barely visible through the tightly drawn curtains and covered balconies. But inside those shadows, something else moved. Not just survivors.
Outside, the infected were no longer scattered. They were coalescing drawn by sound, by scent, by instinct. By 8 PM, Mukul's backup camera rigged to a disused bathroom window captured a chilling image: more than a hundred zombies, pacing in uneven loops between the gym, parking lane, and the broken utility gate near Tower D.
Some thrashed against metal, others crawled beneath cars, arms stretching for motionless shadows. One, barely clothed and soaked in blood, crouched motionless for fifteen minutes only to leap forward when a cat scampered by the boundary wall. These were no longer scattered threats. This was a herd.
Inside A-603, Shivansh crouched low, watching through a small slit in the blackout curtain. He blinked the torch once more only once now, as per the new rule. No excess, no confusion. And yet... something blinked back.
From Tower C. A floor that wasn't marked green.
He frowned. The window didn't match Zoya's flat. This one was lower, partially obscured. Two slow flashes. Then nothing.
He waited.
Again: two slow flashes.
He tapped the group.
Shivansh Sharma:"Anyone signaling from C-301 or C-302?"
Zoya:"No. I'm 402. Haven't flashed in 20 minutes. Been feeding myself a half-rotten apple."
Parth:"I saw that too. Too slow. Not the pattern."
Mukul:"Not mine. Drone's off. I'm rewiring."
Then Gurleen messaged, her tone sharper than usual.
Mrs. Gurleen Kaur (B-401):"Kitchen bulb flickered. Two of them came to the glass. I turned it off. They lingered."
A minute later, Rekha chimed in.
Rekha Sethi (B-301):"I yelled to distract them. It worked. One followed my voice. But another just… stayed. Like it was listening."
The implication hung heavy in the group chat. They weren't just roaming anymore. Shradha sent a single message.
Shradha Pandey (C-702):"The shadows near Tower C aren't all random. One of them keeps returning to the same spot. Like it remembers being there."
Shivansh didn't answer. He couldn't not yet. Because across from him, the same unknown signal blinked again. Two times. Pause. One slow.
And then silence. He lowered the torch, switched it off entirely.
"You're done?" Ankita asked. "For tonight," he said. "Something's copying our pattern." "You mean… one of them?" "I don't know," he lied. But deep down, he feared it was worse.
Because if the infected could recognize patterns, mimic light, or worse learn behavior this wasn't just survival anymore. It was a countdown. Because if the infected could recognize patterns, mimic light, or worse learn behavior this wasn't just survival anymore. It was a countdown.
Shivansh sat still for a long moment, the torch now lying silent beside him. The light across Tower C hadn't blinked again. Maybe it had been a survivor trying to reach someone, or maybe it had been something far worse. Either way, the trust that had started to bloom between balconies was beginning to wilt under uncertainty.
The air inside A-603 was heavy now, as if the apartment itself had picked up on the tension. Ankita was silent, slicing stale chapati into cubes for later rationing. Vedant had stopped scribbling and simply watched the curtained balcony, his fingers twitching nervously in his lap.
Then it came sudden, sharp, and terrifying.
A scream.
It tore through the compound like a siren, bouncing off tower walls and echoing up stairwells. Shivansh jumped to his feet, nearly knocking over the bat leaning against the sofa. The scream was close too close. It had come from inside the society, not from the courtyard. A human voice. Female. Young.
The second scream was shorter. Panicked. Then a thud. Then silence.
He ran to the peephole. The corridor outside remained still. Nothing moved, but he could hear sounds from below. One floor down, maybe two. Movement. Something being dragged.
His phone vibrated.
It was Gurleen. Her message appeared on the screen in trembling text.
"They opened the door. I saw it from the balcony. They thought help had come. Someone outside flashed a signal. They thought it meant rescue."
Another message came in, this time from Parth.
"Not good. We just lost a whole flat."
Mukul followed quickly. "I didn't flash. Wasn't me. I swear on my mother."
Rekha added, "It was copied. Or someone panicked."
The words kept coming, but Shivansh barely read them. His jaw tightened, and his breath slowed. He didn't know who had died he just knew they were neighbors. He might've passed them in the elevator last week. Someone who had once complained about late newspaper delivery. Someone who had borrowed salt.
Now, they were dead. Because of a blink.
Zoya messaged next. Her text was short but broken. "This is my fault. I flashed earlier. Maybe they copied me. Maybe someone saw and thought… I shouldn't have done it."
Shivansh stared at the screen, then typed back calmly. "Stop. It's not your fault. They were scared. They wanted to believe there was still a way out. We're trying. That matters."
No one replied after that.
The chat went quiet.
Across the towers, survivor lights dimmed, curtains tightened, and the flashlight network so alive just hours earlier shut down like a dying heartbeat.
Then came the sound. At first, it blended into the rest of the city noise. But slowly, it sharpened.
Clang. Pause. Clang. Clang. Pause.
Shivansh moved slowly to the balcony. From near the gym, in the dark below, something was hitting metal an old rusted pipe, maybe. The sound came again. Rhythmic. Predictable.
Clang. Pause. Clang. Clang. Pause.
Vedant stood beside him now, whispering, "That sounds like… the signal. The three-blink one."
Shivansh didn't answer. He didn't want to. He just watched.
Somewhere in the dark, a figure swayed near the gym fence. It held something in its hand. It didn't blink. It didn't flash. It didn't speak.
But it remembered. The pipe sound finally faded. Whatever had been down there infected or worse lost interest, or simply moved on. But the chill it left in the air lingered like the smoke from a burnt match. Across the complex, there were no more lights now. No movement behind curtains. Just a thick, oppressive silence.
Shivansh sat back on the floor, his back to the wall, staring at his phone screen for a long time before typing anything. Everyone in the group was still online, but no one was speaking. They didn't need to.
Finally, he broke the silence.
Shivansh Sharma (A-603):
"No more flashing lights. For tonight, stay quiet. Stay in. Stay alert. We'll try again in the morning. Rest while you can."
He didn't wait for replies. He knew they would see it. Know it. Obey it. Not out of fear but because they trusted him now. And maybe because none of them could bear to watch another mistake.
Parth was the first to respond.
"Understood. Floor check at 7 AM. I'm ready."
Then Rekha.
"No movement from Tower B ground floor. Niharika's sleeping near the map. We're still with you."
Gurleen followed.
"Gas is low. Can still make tea if anyone needs calming. But I'll wait till dawn."
Mukul sent a short note.
"Drone standby. Charging now. Will release at sunrise if skies are clear."
Even Imran, usually sparse with words, sent one message.
"Rifle's loaded. Floor's quiet. Shahida's sleeping. I'm not."
Ankita placed a hand on Shivansh's shoulder. "You did what you could."
"No," he said quietly. "I did what I had to."
He stood up and walked to the balcony, pulling the blackout curtain one inch aside. Outside, the courtyard looked like a battlefield waiting to happen. Dozens maybe over a hundred now infected wandered aimlessly, occasionally twitching, occasionally growling. One stood near the society fountain, completely still, head tilted toward the buildings like it was listening for something.
In a few hours, they'd begin. Floor by floor. Flat by flat. It wouldn't be clean. It wouldn't be perfect. But it was the only way forward.
In B-301, Niharika shaded another square on her floor map and pinned it to the wall with a sewing needle. Shradha in C-702 lit incense and sat cross-legged, whispering something under her breath. Gurleen put her glasses aside and lay on the floor beside her tiffin box. Parth did silent push-ups in a corner. And in A-603, Shivansh taped one more line to the wall under their hand-drawn plan.
"At dawn, we stop hiding." Then he sat down beside his brother, turned off the last light, and closed his eyes. The night wasn't over. But morning would come. And when it did, they'd be ready.