"Where did a scumbag like Richter get gear like that?" Marco's voice cut through the tense silence in the SUV, his eyes fixed on the road ahead but his thoughts clearly back at the compound stash. "Military radios, assault rifle, night vision… that's not stuff you just find lying around."
Quinn gripped the steering wheel tighter, pushing the SUV along the darkening country road. "Good question," he replied grimly. "Maybe raided an armory early on? National Guard depot?"
"Possible," Marco conceded, shifting the assault rifle on his lap. "But that gear looked maintained. Looked supplied. Richter always had stuff nobody else could get their hands on. Fuel when everyone else was dry, ammo… Never made sense."
Martha, squeezed between them, shuddered. "He always boasted about his 'connections'. Said he had friends in high places looking out for him, making sure he had what he needed to keep… order." She spat the word like it tasted foul. "Never believed him. Thought it was just talk."
"Maybe it wasn't," Quinn murmured, a half-forgotten memory stirring at the edge of his consciousness, nudged loose by the military tracks they'd just passed and the sophisticated gear they'd recovered. He remembered hushed conversations in sterile briefing rooms, snippets overheard between officers who thought the enlisted weren't listening. Talk about budgets, research initiatives, the changing face of combat.
"What do you mean?" Marco asked, glancing over at him.
Quinn hesitated, unsure how to voice the fragmented thought. "Before deployment," he began slowly, choosing his words carefully. "Last couple years… there was talk. Rumors, mostly. High command stuff." He glanced in the rearview mirror, checking the road behind them. Still clear. "Talk about the next phase of warfare. Cutting costs, reducing personnel."
"Always talk like that," Marco grunted. "Cheaper drones, fancier bombs."
"This was different," Quinn insisted, the memory sharpening now. He recalled Lieutenant Colonel Davies, sharp and ambitious, talking quietly but intensely with a visiting civilian contractor in a polished suit, gesturing at holographic displays Quinn couldn't quite make out. "They weren't just talking about drones. They were talking about personnel. About… obsolescence."
"Obsolescence?" Martha echoed, confused.
"Making soldiers like me… like Sarah… obsolete," Quinn clarified, the word tasting bitter. "Why spend millions training a Marine for years, dealing with psych evals, pensions, veterans' benefits… when you could engineer something better? Faster? Stronger? Something that doesn't question orders, doesn't need leave, doesn't break down?"
Marco stared at him. "Super soldiers? Like in the comic books?" He sounded skeptical, but also uneasy.
"Not necessarily capes and flying boots," Quinn said. "Maybe biological. Genetic. Maybe viral enhancers. Something that makes people… more. Or less, depending on your point of view. Less human, maybe. More controllable." He thought of the unnatural speed and coordination of the Whisperers, the chilling focus in their milky eyes. A cold dread trickled down his spine. Was that the experiment? An engineered plague that created not super soldiers, but monsters? Or was that just a side effect, gone horribly wrong?
"You think Richter's gear... came from something like that?" Marco asked, his voice hushed now. "From the people behind it all?"
"I don't know," Quinn admitted honestly. "But who else has military-grade equipment out here, besides maybe scattered remnants of the actual military?" He thought of the Humvee tracks disappearing into the woods just miles back. Were they part of the original structure? Or part of the experiment? Or maybe just another group of survivors who got lucky? "Someone supplied Richter. Someone kept him armed. Maybe he wasn't just a petty warlord. Maybe he was a convenient pawn, keeping control of a certain area, maybe gathering resources for someone higher up the food chain."
The implication hung heavy in the cramped vehicle. If Richter was just a pawn, who were the players? And what was their game? The idea that the outbreak wasn't just a random catastrophe, but potentially something engineered, something connected to shadowy military projects… it shifted the entire landscape of their struggle.
"God help us," Martha whispered, pulling her thin shawl tighter around her shoulders despite the lack of chill.
The SUV sped on through the twilight, the weight of Quinn's words settling over the occupants. They were driving towards the fragile safety of the farmhouse, hoping to reunite with their friends, but the shadows gathering outside seemed deeper now, filled not just with the familiar threat of the infected, but with the colder, more calculating menace of human design.
Quinn kept his eyes on the road, but his mind was racing. The whispered briefing room conversations, the impossible speed of the creatures, the military gear in Richter's hands…. were they all pieces of the same puzzle? A puzzle he was only just beginning to comprehend?
Ahead, the road curved gently, leading towards the familiar stand of skeletal trees that marked the turnoff for George and Martha's farm track. Almost there. He eased his foot off the accelerator, letting the SUV slow, peering through the windshield into the gathering gloom.
He saw the turnoff, a faint break in the dark line of trees bordering the overgrown fields. The dirt track leading towards the isolated house was barely visible. He slowed the SUV further, turning onto the bumpy track, switching off the headlights to plunge them into near darkness, relying on the faint ambient light from the sky and his memory of the path.
The farmhouse loomed ahead, a blocky silhouette against the darkening sky, utterly dark, utterly silent. No welcoming lamps glowed in the boarded windows. No smoke curled from the chimney. No sounds carried on the evening breeze other than the wind sighing through the dead cornstalks and the thumping of his own heart against his ribs.
"Looks quiet," Marco observed from the back, his voice tense.
"Too quiet?" Martha whispered beside Quinn, echoing his own gnawing fear.
It looked exactly as they'd left it. That could mean everything was fine, or it could mean something had gone terribly wrong while they were gone. The silence felt unnatural.
Quinn brought the SUV to a halt fifty yards out, engine idling almost silently. He scanned the building, the surrounding yard, the dark shapes of the outbuildings. Nothing moved. No lights. No sounds. He couldn't see Sarah's silhouette in a window, couldn't hear George's gruff voice challenging their approach. Only silence.
"Okay," Quinn breathed, shifting the gear selector into park but keeping his foot hovering over the brake. "Nobody moves. Nobody makes a sound. Let me check this out first."
He reached for the door handle, every nerve ending tingling, preparing to step out into the unnerving stillness, praying he wasn't about to walk into another ambush or find the farmhouse horrifyingly empty.