Chapter 18 (Joshua’s POV)

  The moon hung above the cottage like a cracked coin, pale light rippling across plywood and barbed wire. My pulse insisted on a rhythm quicker than the rustle of wind?blown ivy, so I walked the perimeter, war?hammer dangling at my hip, boots crunching frost?bitten weeds. Every third step I paused, letting silence stretch until I could count my own breaths. Anna slept inside—finally—and the fragile hush felt like porcelain in my hands.

  The first roamer announced itself with the faintest rattle of glass: a shard skittering down the gutter of the neighboring brownstone. I pivoted, shoulders tensing. A silhouette lurched into view—tall, rag?clad, limbs stiff as puppets. It shuffled across the cracked sidewalk, one shoe missing, toes of the bare foot sloughing skin at each dragging step. The smell wafted ahead of it: rancid meat left in the sun, vinegar sharp beneath rot.

  I slipped the war?hammer free. The head—four pounds of cold?forged steel—caught moonlight, gleaming like ice. I advanced three paces, found firm footing, and waited. The roamer swung a gnarled arm, fingertips black with necrosis, jaws sawing open in a breathless moan. When it reached striking distance, I planted my left foot, let the hammer rise in a smooth arc, and brought it down across the temple.

  The crack sounded like green wood splitting. The skull collapsed inward; dark matter sprayed the curb. I grimaced, yanking my sleeve over my mouth to blunt the stench. The corpse folded as if strings were cut, oozing across frost?silver grass.

  Hands trembling but steady enough, I knelt behind the neck. Flesh felt spongy beneath the glove, cold yet somehow slick. Three inches below the skull’s base, my fingers located the hard marble of a pearl. A practiced pinch, a twist—then I dug it free. It emerged coated in thick, tar?like fluid that clung to my glove in slow strands. I wiped the orb on a rag and dropped it into my pouch, where its faint warmth pulsed like a trapped heartbeat.

  The quiet did not last. Ten minutes later, the metallic tang of decay drifted from the alley. I pivoted, spotting another shambler—smaller, perhaps teenage once, now gaunt, spine crooked like a question mark. The jaw hung by sinew; each shuddering step left flecks of something dark on the pavement. I approached more cautiously—hammer raised, left hand extended for balance.

  It lunged faster than expected, fingernails peeling away as they scraped my jacket. I shoved its shoulder, bones creaking like defective hinges, and swung upward. The hammer’s beak caught under the chin, snapping the head back with a wet crunch. I staggered at the momentum, brought the weapon down again, this time crushing the crown. A fog of rot exploded; I choked back bile.

  Extraction was messier—skin tore in strips as I probed for the pearl. When it popped loose, milky grime followed, dripping through my fingers. I gagged, sucked cold air through clenched teeth, and wiped both glove and orb on a patch of snow. Two pearls.

  The third roarmer announced itself with a guttural hiss from behind the hedge. Bigger—broad shoulders, perhaps an ex?construction worker judging by frayed orange vest still clinging to its frame. I tightened my grip, aware my arms already trembled from the first two kills. It barreled forward, boots slapping the driveway, one eye a sunken crater fringed with mold. I sidestepped, hammer looping in a tight circle for momentum. The first swing clipped its jaw—teeth scattered like gravel—but momentum spun me too far. It seized my forearm, grip icy and iron?strong.

  I snarled, yanked free, feeling glove fabric rip. Then I reversed the hammer, drove the peen straight through the orbital socket with a muffled thud. The corpse froze, twitching, before collapsing onto the lawn, weight sinking into soft soil. My breath fogged the air in ragged plumes; sweat prickled despite the cold.

  Kneeling, I braced my knee on its back, split the matted hair, and felt along the spine. This pearl sat deeper—had to cut with my knife tip, prying cartilage aside until the sphere surfaced like an egg from mud. The smell hit harder up close: sickly?sweet rot overlaid with chemical must, making my stomach lurch. I swallowed vomit, pocketed pearl number three, and rubbed my hands on grass to scrub my gloves.

  Moonlight painted the yard in pewter. Steam curled from dark splatters on concrete. I paced the property line again, body humming from adrenaline and revulsion. Three pearls clinked in the pouch.

  Inside, faint lamplight glowed in the kitchen window. Anna still slept, oblivious to the carnage her walls kept at bay. I exhaled, letting the war?hammer rest against my shoulder. The night air tasted of iron and pine; somewhere distant a rifle fired then died, carrying the faint echo of human folly.

  I resumed patrol, more wary now, senses stretched thin. Yet a grim satisfaction stirred: each kill meant one step closer to whatever stat bonus the Gate promised—maybe faster reflexes, stronger sinews, fewer diseased cuts. But beyond numbers, each corpse was one less shadow scratching at our door.

  The moon had dropped behind the skeletal maples, leaving only a thin smear of starlight across the shattered rooftops. Every broken shingle, every jagged dormer corner seemed sharpened by the darkness, like the city itself had decided to grow fangs in its sleep. I kept pacing the rag?and?gravel ribbon that passed for our front walk, war?hammer hanging from its sling at my right hip, the haft tapping my leg in a slow, hypnotic rhythm.

  Anna was still inside, dead?asleep on the new roll?up mattress I’d dragged through the Gate. Even behind barricaded windows I could hear her breathing—soft, steady, the sound of a human body finally thawing after years of clenched survival. I tightened my grip on the hammer’s leather strap. Let her sleep. Let the nightmares come for me instead.

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  The next intruder announced itself with a wet, dragging cough—almost like a smoker clearing his lungs—but too ragged, too liquid. I froze, eyes narrowing toward the sound. A silhouette lurched into view between two fallen picket?fence posts: tall, skeletal, its hips jerking at a wrong angle with every step. One arm dangled, mostly tendon; the other was fused to the chest with black, tarry gore.

  Up close the reek hit—sweet rot, fermented like overripe peaches left in an engine bay. My stomach clenched but I raised the hammer, stepping into its arc the way my HEMA instructor drilled: weight on the back foot, wrists loose until the last instant.

  I whispered, “For silence,” and brought the four?pound steel head down in a tight, vertical chop.

  Crunch. Skull split like damp gypsum; a slurry of blackened brain tissue and chunky pus spattered my boots. The roamer’s jaw kept working for half a heartbeat, loose teeth clacking like dice, before the rest of the body folded. Knees collapsed, femurs popping out of necrotic sockets, and it settled face?first in a puddle of its own internal sludge.

  I forced a breath through my mouth—smell was useless here—then knelt. The nape still pulsed faintly, as if some pocket of necrotic gas burped under the skin. I plunged a hunting knife in, shearing through leathery cartilage. Fingers slid into a cavity hot as compost. When they met the smooth, marble?hard core of the pearl I gave a sharp twist and popped it free.

  It came out slick, coated in threads of grey gruel that stretched like rotten mozzarella. I wiped it on a rag, dropped it into my thigh pouch, and swallowed bile. One down.

  I barely straightened before twin silhouettes broke the tree line—roamers moving in that clumsy, mirror?image gait. The first was missing its lower jaw entirely; a ribbon of tongue slapped against its collarbone each time it jerked forward. The second wore tattered office slacks, the thigh seams dark with old blood. Something bulged beneath its ribs—maybe a pocket of decay gases; maybe a nest of maggots fattening on liver.

  No room for finesse. I sprinted the few paces, swung the hammer in a rising diagonal. The jawless one caught the blow across the temple; its skull caved inward, eye popping like a grape. Bone fragments pattered the driveway like hail. It crumpled, spasming.

  The office roamer lunged, fingers hooked. I reversed grip—HEMA half?hammer technique—choking up so the steel buttcap struck first. Thwack. Nasal cartilage shattered; sour, clotted blood fountained across my sleeve. I pivoted behind it, raised the hammer overhead and spiked straight down.

  The head burst. Not like a melon—more like a boiled egg left too long: shell collapsing inward, fluids spraying in stringy arcs. A gob of half?dried vitreous humor slapped my cheek, hot and sticky. I gagged but held the hammer until the twitching stopped.

  Pearl harvest again. Jawless first: incision, dig, pop. The cavity oozed whitish curds that smelled of rancid cheese soaked in diesel. Second one: cavity was deeper; I had to wedge fingers between fractured vertebrae, nails scraping bone until the sphere dislodged. When it came out the pearl was still pulsing faint, almost like it retained heat from whatever unholy metabolism powered the dead.

  I wiped both pearls on the grass—dew diluted some of the slime—and dropped them in the pouch. That made six tonight, twenty?five plus six… thirty?one total in my ledger now. We were apocalypse rich now if the rumors among that Anna had shared about the scavengers were to be believed. Or enough for a month’s worth of antibiotics in the strip?mall bazaar.

  The adrenaline drained, leaving my limbs watery. I crouched, wiped gore off the hammerhead with a shredded curtain I’d tied to my belt. Above, clouds scudded across a sliver?moon like bruises migrating over pale skin. Somewhere far off, a single gunshot cracked—an Empire patrol maybe, or some desperate loner making a last stand.

  I spat copper?tasting saliva, then walked the cottage perimeter again, boots squelching through mud laced with offal. Each shadow looked carnivorous now; every gust of wind seemed to carry the stink of something hungry.

  But no more shapes materialised. The dead city settled back into its uneasy sleep, and I allowed myself a moment against the porch rail, breath fogging. Inside, Anna slept on—no nightmares loud enough to pierce through new?car sleeping?bag insulation. Good.

  I cleaned the pearls with the water from the rain barrel, water rippling iridescent as flakes of rot floated away. Then I climbed the steps, set the war?hammer just inside the door, and logged the night’s tally on my battered notebook:

  Night Watch T?11

  ? 6 roamers eliminated

  ? 6 pearls harvested

  ? Noise discipline: maintained (hammer percussion only)

  ? Personal condition: mild nausea, minor wrist bruise

  I turned down the lantern wick and lay on the hallway floor—not daring to wake Anna for mattress space—listening to the house settle. Somewhere overhead a board creaked like a cautious footstep, but I knew it was only wood cooling. Still, I kept the hammer within arm’s reach.

  Sleep came in ragged bursts, each dream strobing between this world’s mucus?slick skulls and the other world’s fluorescent aisles brimming with oblivious shoppers. Somewhere in the blur I realized I’d stopped smelling the corpses on my clothes; my nose had simply surrendered.

  When dawn bled thin amber over the windows, I hauled myself upright, joints crackling. A new day, another dozen hours to barricade harder, scavenge farther, and pray.

  But for one exhausted heartbeat, I allowed myself to imagine Anna’s face when I handed her three fresh pearls—another step toward whatever endgame this hellscape held. The thought felt almost… warm.