The courtyard was still. But it wasn't quiet.
Every tower echoed with a different sound knife being sharpened, duct tape ripping, deep breaths muffled by masks, the hollow clatter of makeshift armor. Tower A's hallway smelled of sweat, metal, and talcum powder. It wasn't strategy anymore. It was war prep.
Shivansh stood at the center of the floor, tying the last strap of padding around his forearm. He'd taken pieces of sofa cushion, taped them over an old denim jacket, and layered it with two belts across the chest. His father's cricket bat cracked but still deadly rested against his shoulder. The same one that had saved Vedant on Day One. Today, it would do more.
Parth walked in, adjusting a length of pipe he had reforged into a bludgeon. He wore an old motorcycle helmet, the visor taped to stay down. "Squads are formed. Everyone's waiting."
"How's Kavita?" Shivansh asked.
Parth's expression darkened. "Quiet. Focused. She's staying back to hold the stairwell with Gurleen. She won't let anyone near Tina again."
Shivansh nodded. "Good."
In the next room, Samarjeet inspected his shotgun, hands moving like clockwork. Beside him, Imran knelt with his rifles, checking every round like it might be the last. Neither man spoke. They didn't need to. Their silence was heavier than any battle cry.
Mukul launched his drone from the terrace. It zipped upward with a soft whirr, then leveled out. The feed lit up on his cracked phone screen zombies. Dozens of them. Shambling. Wandering. A few still stumbling through the garden's ashes from the gym fire, limbs charred, eyes white with rage.
"Eighty," Mukul whispered. "Give or take."
Shivansh exhaled, then turned to the crowd now gathering in the lobby twenty-three survivors. Ordinary people in improvised armor. Broomsticks. Wrenches. Bricks tied to steel rods. But there was something more dangerous in their hands than weapons resolve.
Zoya gripped a thick wooden rolling pin with both hands, her knuckles white. Niharika stood beside her, calm but unreadable. She had refused to sit this out, and not even Rekha's trembling voice could stop her.
Aalia fastened a pouch of gauze and antiseptic to her hip. Shradha wrapped rope around her wrists like a fighter entering the ring. Aarav helped Dinesh fix a dented manhole cover to a broom handle, creating what he jokingly called a Delhi Shield. Even Ashok Tripathi showed up, wearing his old cricket jersey and holding a spade like it was Excalibur.
Deepak stood apart sober, silent, and staring out the gate's narrow gap. "Let me help," he'd said. And no one argued this time.
Shivansh stepped forward.
"We hit hard. Fast. Three squads. One goal reclaim the garden and lock that gate. No gun unless it's the last option. Headshots only. You freeze, fall back. You panic, call out. You see someone bitten don't hesitate."
He raised the bat.
"This is our home. Let's remind them what it means to knock on our door." The terrace radio crackled. Imran's voice came in low, steady. "Ready when you are. On your mark."
Shivansh turned toward the door. And for the first time since the outbreak began, he smiled. "Open it." The doors burst open with a shriek of rusted hinges, and the world outside rushed in light, heat, wind, and the low growl of death.
Shivansh didn't hesitate. He charged through first, bat raised like a war banner, soles crunching over shattered glass and dried blood. Behind him, Parth, Mukul, Niharika, and Zoya fanned out in a wide arc, their weapons glinting in the morning sun. From above, Mukul's drone zipped into place, painting shadows across the lawn. Its camera blinked red.
The infected were already moving.
The nearest three staggered from the center garden, sunburnt skin peeling like old wallpaper, mouths frozen open in hunger. Shivansh sprinted at the one closest to the swing set, swinging his bat low crack it struck the knee first, then the temple on the rebound. The thing dropped like a puppet with cut strings.
Mukul let out a shaky breath. "One down."
"Seventy-nine to go," Parth growled, then blocked a lurching walker with his forearm and shoved his blade through its jaw.
Squad B spilled out of the Tower B staircase next Aalia, Deepak, Dinesh, Shradha, and Aarav. They attacked from the right flank, using trees and iron benches as natural barricades. Aalia stayed in the back, already pulling the wounded away when a screamer launched itself at her. Deepak stepped in, jamming a wrench straight through its eye socket with a guttural shout.
Ashok, surprisingly nimble, darted to cover an exposed alley near the parking lot. "One near the garden wall!" he shouted. Samarjeet's reply came not in words but with a deafening boom from the rooftop.
The zombie's head exploded mid-step, painting the brick wall behind it with blackened pulp.
Zoya screamed not in fear, but in effort as she shoved a thick wooden pole into an infected woman who looked barely older than her. It hissed, then bit at the wood. Zoya didn't pull back. She pushed harder until the head twisted wrong and collapsed.
On the left, Niharika faced her first true test.
A crawler gripped her ankle from the ground, fingers digging through her sock. She froze just a moment. Long enough for another walker to stumble her way. Shradha saw it, leapt the flowerbed, and brought a hammer down between the zombie's shoulders. It twitched once. Then went still.
"You, okay?" she asked, pulling Niharika back up.
Niharika's face was pale, jaw clenched. But she nodded. "Yeah. I'm in this."
Back at the main gate, Aarav and Dinesh had started dragging the broken scooter wreckage into place. It would block the final entry point. But two zombies came up from behind, silent until they were almost within striking distance. Aarav whirled just in time to deflect one Dinesh wasn't so lucky. The second infected slammed him into the railing, teeth gnashing near his throat.
Parth sprinted across the grass and dove, slamming his shoulder into the walker's side. It toppled but so did he.
From the roof, another crack.
Samarjeet's second shot tore through its spine. Dinesh gasped, blood on his neck but no bite. Just a tear.
"You're lucky," Parth muttered, pulling him up. "Now move."
Shivansh slammed another infected against a car hood, bat caked with gore. He yelled toward Mukul, who was checking corners.
"Status?"
Mukul's drone feed jittered. "They're regrouping near the parking lot maybe fifteen left, but they're coming fast!"
Ashok shouted from behind a car, "WE GOT RUNNERS!" And just like that four zombies broke from the tree line in a dead sprint.
Aalia screamed. One caught Deepak's shoulder, dragging him to the ground.
But the old man didn't go quietly. He shoved a shard of glass straight into its mouth. Then a second one. Blood sprayed, but not his.
He stood again, eyes wild. "Still standing!" Zoya pulled Aalia back. "Fall behind the gate! Now!"
The survivors surged forward, sweeping the last of the garden in a brutal wave heads smashed, limbs broken, one after the other. Mukul kept shouting positions. Imran took two more down from the terrace with surgical precision. Samarjeet's last shell dropped a massive, bloated walker right at the main entry path.
By the end, twenty corpses lay twitching on the soil. Another ten were staggering back, confused, cornered. Most of the horde had been destroyed. But they weren't done yet. Shivansh turned, panting, blood dripping from his bat.
"To the gate!" he roared. "We close it now while we still can!" The final stretch was soaked in sweat and blood.
The survivors moved as one now silent, driven, eyes set on the wide front gate of the society compound. The last twenty zombies had formed a loose semi-circle near the outer wall, some trapped behind fallen furniture, others crawling through flower beds, snarling like wounded dogs.
Shivansh led the charge toward the gate, dodging a lunging walker and crushing its head with a clean downward swing. The bone gave way like cracked pottery. He didn't flinch.
Aarav and Dinesh were already dragging thick chains from the old generator room to loop through the gate bars. Mukul's drone hovered above them, eyes in the sky. "Two more incoming!" he shouted. "Near the park bench!"
Parth veered left, ducked beneath a flailing arm, and slammed his bat across the temple of another infected. Aalia was right behind him, dragging a wounded Shradha back toward the main building, blood trailing down her leg.
And then Parth froze.
He didn't see the face at first. Not fully. The creature stumbled into view from behind the gatehouse wall thin, staggering, its chest heaving like it was choking on its own breath.
It was wearing a torn red shirt. A shirt Parth had seen every day in the garden.
It was Rinku. Or… what was left of him.
His face had changed bloated, slack, lips peeled back but the eyes were the same shape, and the limp in his right leg… still there. He dragged his foot just like he did when carrying groceries up the stairs.
Kavita's voice echoed in Parth's mind. "He loved this place. He kept saying we'd raise Tina here forever."
For a moment, Parth lowered his weapon.
The zombie didn't roar. It just groaned, arms reaching blindly forward. A strange, hollow sound escaped its mouth something between a breath and a sob.
Behind him, Mukul shouted again. "Parth! What are you doing!?"
Rinku turned his head, the jerking motion too unnatural to be human anymore. And still… his eyes milky and wild locked on Parth.
"I'm sorry, bhai," Parth whispered. He stepped forward. One clean swing.
The bat hit Rinku's skull with a dull, heavy crack. The body collapsed instantly, twitching once before going still at his feet. Parth dropped to one knee, breathing hard.
Shivansh grabbed his shoulder from behind. "You, okay Parth?"
Parth nodded, eyes still locked on Rinku's body. "He deserved peace. Not this." "We'll tell Kavita it was fast."
Parth didn't respond. He just stood, gripped his weapon tighter, and joined the rest. By now, the gate was almost sealed.
Ashok and Tanmay dragged a metal cabinet into place to wedge against the iron doors. Imran covered the road with the rifle. Samarjeet had stopped firing saving his last shell. Inside, Zoya and Deepak finished pushing the final walker into a corner before Shivansh smashed its head like a rotten melon.
The chains clanked. The lock clicked. And with that, the gate shut. Fully.
For the first time since this nightmare began, the society was closed to the outside. Inside the bloodied courtyard, the survivors collapsed where they stood. Breathing. Bleeding. Alive. Shivansh turned to look one last time at Rinku's still form. And whispered, "Rest now.
The society grounds had stopped screaming.
There was no sound of groaning flesh, no teeth scraping tin, no desperate pleas through shattered windows. Only the soft clang of iron gates being chained shut and the heavy exhale of bodies that had been braced for death too long.
The infected were gone. The price had been steep.
More than sixty of them now lay in contorted piles. Some still clutched the iron railings in twisted rigor mortis. Others had already begun to rot in the sun, their black blood soaking into the soil where children once played.
The survivors gathered, scarred and exhausted, to do what needed doing.
One by one, they dragged the corpses to the blackened husk of the gym. The same place where they'd nearly died. Where Deepak had bled and Mukul had screamed and Parth had faced hell to save medicine for a crying child. Now it became a pyre.
Ashok and Tanmay rolled the larger bodies using salvaged mats as stretchers. Dinesh and Aarav formed a grim line, ferrying blood-slick bodies to the edge of the flames. Zoya, Shradha, and Aalia wrapped torn bedsheets around what they could, avoiding the faces where possible. Too many of them still looked familiar.
Parth carried Rinku himself.
He said nothing. His eyes didn't blink. Kavita stood a few meters away, baby Tina in her arms, watching the man who had once laughed every morning while watering balcony plants now laid down at the feet of fire.
Imran poured diesel. Mukul lit the first match. The fire roared to life with a hiss, swallowing the bodies with a wave of heat and smoke.
The smell was unbearable. But no one moved. Behind the crowd, Shivansh turned away.
He didn't say a word. He didn't make a speech. He just walked. Past the garden, past the broken benches, past the blood stains still smeared across the pavement until he reached the small, tucked-away temple between Tower B and C. Its faded red door had been left open during the outbreak. The bell above hung at an odd angle, rusted and silent.
Inside, it was still. Like the eye of a storm. The idols stood untouched.
Lord Ganesha with his kind eyes. Durga astride her lion. Hanuman mid-flight, mace raised. Krishna, flute in hand, gaze soft.
Shivansh walked in slowly, feeling the cracked marble beneath his feet. The world outside could have ended. But here… this space had held.
He stood before the altar for a long time. No words. Just breath. Just memory. And then, he fell to his knees.
He folded his hands, tightly, the way his mother had taught him as a child. His voice came out in a whisper, barely audible.
"Thank you." His shoulders began to shake.
"You kept us alive," he said, voice trembling. "I don't know how… or why… but we're still here."
He looked up at the idols, tears flooding down his face now ash and blood mixing into the wet lines.
"But I'm tired," he whispered. "I'm scared. I'm not him, My father. I'm not a soldier, and I'm carrying bats and telling people when to swing."
He bowed his head until it touched the stone floor.
"Help me. Please. I don't want to fail them. I can't lose anyone else. Show me how to lead. Give me the strength to protect them…"
Behind him, faint footsteps paused at the temple entrance.
Niharika stood in silence.
She didn't interrupt. She didn't walk away either.
She watched him this boy who had become something more and she folded her hands too. Quietly. Not for herself. But for them.
By the time Shivansh returned, the flames at the gym had shrunk to embers. Smoke trailed upward into the fading sky, like incense from a ritual none of them had chosen but all of them had performed.
Everyone was gathered in the courtyard.
Mukul rolled out a makeshift map onto the floor a sketch of the surrounding area. Sector 37. Rohini. Shops, medical centers, a half-forgotten Kirana hub five kilometers out. The next goal.
"We go at first light," Parth said. "We use the cars."
"Two or three working vehicles in the basement," Aarav added. "If we can jump the batteries."
Ankita stepped forward, her hands trembling as she passed a small folded list to Aalia. "Medicine. Sanitary pads. Diapers. Things we need for the women… for the children."
Kavita stood beside her, still holding Tina close. "Please… formula too. And clothes. She's burning through everything."
Imran nodded. "Me and Samarjeet will cover the compound. Shivansh leads the run."
Shivansh didn't respond at first. He just stared at the map. At the roads. At the red X they had drawn where hope used to live.
Then he looked up. "We open the gate tomorrow." Silence followed.