Clear Water, Hidden Danger

Chapter 14 – The Return

The sun was just beginning to burn through what was left of the fog when the north gate of the Clear Water Plant came into view. The morning light spilled thin and gold across the wet asphalt, and for the first time in days I could see the outline of the storage tanks—solid, real, not ghosts in the mist.

I pulled the truck to the badge reader and waited. The scanner blinked once, then green. The gate shuddered open, metal groaning like it had been holding its breath.

We rolled inside. The yard looked smaller, sharper, but alive. Floodlights clicked off one by one as sunlight pushed in, and people ran toward the convoy—faces I hadn’t seen in what felt like days, open with disbelief and relief all at once.

Two FEMA MCUs followed close behind, their white paint streaked with mud. The sight of them stopped everyone cold.

Dave was the first through the crowd. “Holy hell,” he said, grinning. “You actually brought half the government with you.”

“Something like that,” I said.

Carmen started unloading civilians while Sergeant Neal and Corporal Wolf snapped into motion. Their soldiers moved with the rhythm of muscle memory—forming a line, passing boxes, shouting counts.

“Fuel and food to the loading dock!” Neal barked. “Meds to the main building! Ammo stays separate!”

Her voice cut clean through the noise. Wolf jogged over with his clipboard, sun glinting off the wet concrete. “Eight M4s, two shotguns, one crate of sidearms, three boxes of nine mil, five of 5.56. Want me to start the armory?”

Neal nodded. “Track bay. Dry, covered, one way in.”

Dave turned, scanning the crowd. “Where’s Mark? He was with you when you left the gate.”

Alex’s hands were already trembling.

I pulled Dave and Alex out of earshot of the crew. I had rehearsed the words a dozen times on the drive, but they still felt heavy.

“Mark didn’t make it,” I said. “He saw someone in the clearing—thought it was his wife. He ran toward her before we could stop him.”

Dave blinked. “You’re kidding.”

“She wasn’t his wife,” I said quietly. “She was one of them. A Berserker.”

Alex’s eyes tightened. “Dios mío… what’s a Berserker?”

“It’s what happens when a Shaker loses control after a pulse,” I said. “They don’t wander—they hunt. Fast. Strong. No hesitation.”

She covered her mouth. “And Mark…”

I hesitated. “She killed him quick. He didn’t suffer.”

Dave swore and turned away. Alex whispered a prayer. None of us spoke for a while. I watched her hands shake, and part of me thought about how easily I could’ve been Mark if Alex’s voice had ever come through that fog.

Neal approached, helmet under her arm. “We saw it happen,” she said quietly. “He was gone before he hit the ground.”

Alex’s voice wavered. “We can’t bury him out there.”

“No,” I said. “It’s too dangerous now. We honor him here.”

Dave’s jaw clenched. “Then we make sure no one else chases ghosts.”

Mateo and Carmen had been silent since we rolled in. When the others drifted off to unload gear, they finally came over.

Mateo’s face looked carved from stone. Carmen’s eyes were swollen but dry—like she’d run out of tears hours ago.

He stopped in front of me. “RJ,” he said, voice tight. “He’s still out there.”

I didn’t answer. I knew exactly who he meant.

“The MCU,” he said. “The one we left sealed at FEMA. My boy’s in there.”

Carmen’s voice cracked. “He wasn’t gone yet. He looked at us—saw us. You saw it too.”

I nodded once. “I saw it. But that thing in there isn’t your son anymore.”

Mateo stepped closer. “Don’t say that.”

“I dragged you off that ladder before you joined him. You think I can forget that sound? The pulse hit, and every one of them moved at once. He was part of it.”

Carmen’s hand trembled against Mateo’s arm. “Maybe so,” she said, “but he’s ours. If there’s even a piece of him left, we can’t just leave him locked in that box.”

Alex shifted beside me. “You open that door, and you bring whatever’s left of him back here—with all of us inside the blast radius when the next hum starts.”

Mateo stared past me, somewhere far away. “Then I go alone.”

Carmen didn’t flinch. “You won’t.”

The silence after that felt heavier than the fog outside the fence. The hum had stopped hours ago, but somehow, standing there, I could still feel it under my skin—like the memory of a heartbeat that wasn’t mine.

They’d barely stacked half the crates when it hit.

A low hum rose from the ground—deep and familiar. Every head turned. The metal under our boots began to tremble, just enough to rattle the bolts in the railings. The air thickened, full of static that crawled through our skin.

“The pulse,” Neal said quietly, then raised her voice. “Ear protection—now!”

Lights flickered. The generators surged, then stabilized. One of the deer outside the fence screamed and vanished into the fog.

It lasted barely a minute this time. When it faded, the silence that followed felt wrong—too sudden, too hollow.

Then we heard them. Screeches that sounded like wounded animals being put down.

Neal’s head snapped toward the noise. “It’s coming from the woods near the north entrance.”

Wolf grabbed his rifle. “Thermal?”

Lin’s voice crackled through the comms. “Nothing clear. Movement, though—multiple heat signatures, small and fast.”

Dave swore under his breath. “Coyotes?”

“Not unless coyotes learned to scream like that,” Neal said.

A second wail ripped through the trees, higher this time. Then a third—cut short mid-breath. The forest went dead quiet.

Everyone froze. The air felt charged again, like the pulse had only paused to breathe.

Neal raised her hand. “No one fires until we see it. If it’s Zerkers, noise draws more.”

We waited. The radios hissed with faint static, then cleared one by one.

Alex’s voice was low beside me. “They sound closer every time.”

“Yeah,” I said. “And faster.”

Through the thinning fog, a shape flickered near the tree line—a quick ripple, gone as soon as I saw it. The light caught something wet on the fence wire. I wasn’t sure if it was dew or blood.

After a minute, Neal lowered her rifle. “All right. Back to it. Double the guard on the north fence.”

We went back to work, slower now, eyes on the trees even while our hands moved.

We turned the old maintenance area into something new—a real armory. Wolf set racks against the concrete wall while Neal painted the door in red from a scavenged can:

CWP ARMORY – AUTHORIZED ENTRY ONLY

Every weapon was tagged, logged, and locked behind a heavy chain. Neal hung the key on her lanyard and laid down the rules.

“Sign-outs in pairs. Ammo stays boxed. Nobody goes solo armed. We stay disciplined, or we don’t stay at all.”

Dave gave her a nod. “You’ve got the armory, Sergeant.”

She just said, “Copy,” and kept working.

For a while, the place buzzed. Survivors from the FEMA convoy fell into rhythm—unloading, sorting, carrying. The sun climbed higher, scattering the fog. The yard warmed, and for the first time since this began, shadows looked like shadows, not threats. Hope sounded like the clang of crates and the scrape of boots.

The plant hummed again—generators steady, water lines flowing, radios alive. Carmen and the medics set up triage in the locker room. Wolf built cots from tarps and pallets. The sun reached the far fence, and steam curled off the wet grass.

By evening, the armory was sealed, everyone fed, and night shifts assigned. Neal’s soldiers assembled in formation by the trucks, helmets gleaming in the fading light.

“All right, listen up!” she called. “We’ve got a perimeter roughly six hundred yards across. Fence line’s our first defense, tanks our fallback. Two-man patrols at all four sides—north, south, east, and west. Rotate every three hours. Nobody patrols alone. Nobody sleeps off-shift near the fence.”

She scanned their faces, and they straightened. “Corporal Wolf—north and east. Private Rourke, take west with Stacks. Hawk and Burns, you’ve got the south line and the pump road. I’ll circulate between zones. Lin, you’re on comms and cameras with RJ.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” they echoed.

Dave handed them extra flashlights and radios. “Keep comms clear unless it’s movement. Don’t chase shadows.”

Neal gave a sharp nod. “Copy that.”

As the teams moved out, I watched their silhouettes scatter through the open yard, rifles slung, radios clicking on one by one. Red beams swept through the last of the clearing mist, marking the boundaries of our fragile peace.

Wolf’s voice faded into the open channel, and for a while the plant sounded almost normal.

Too normal.

By the next morning, people started packing. Corporal Jaxon Boro said he had to reach his wife in Lincoln. Specialist Nicholas Prince refused to let him go alone. Three civilians—Eddie Morales, Kevin Holt, and Lisa Han—volunteered to follow, each chasing family they swore might still be alive. Two of the FEMA medics, Sarah Bell and Jonas Lee, joined them, saying they could do more good on the road.

Neal, Cruz, and I all tried to talk them down. We told them about the pulses, about the ones who never made it past the turnpike, but hope’s a louder voice than reason when it’s calling you home.

We gave them what we could spare—two trucks, ten gallons of diesel each, a crate of rations, spare ammo, and radios tuned to Channel 3. Neal marked safe routes in red on a worn map and told them to stay clear of open ground after dusk.

They left quiet, no speeches, no promises. Just the sound of engines fading into the distance and the gate locking behind them.

Nobody said it, but we all knew.

Nobody was coming back.

Later, I stood on the catwalk overlooking the tanks. The sky was pale and clear, streaked with fading gold. The fog was gone—every inch of it burned away. For the first time in days, I could see the far tree line.

Alex joined me, quiet. “It’s beautiful,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said, though it felt wrong. “Too clear.”

Down below, Neal’s voice came over the radio. “All sectors reporting clear. Outer fence secured.”

Wolf replied, “North perimeter steady. No movement beyond the tree line.”

For the first time since the world cracked, the yard sounded organized. Controlled. Human.

But I knew better.

In this world, calm wasn’t peace.
It was the sound of something waiting to move.