Chapter 429: The Boardwalk’s Screamer [1]

"R..."

"Ry...!"

"Rya—!"

"Ryan!"

"RYAN!"

"Ugh!"

I jolted awake as someone shouted directly beside my ear.

For a few seconds, everything was blurred.

My eyes opened slowly, struggling to focus in the weak white light filling the shop. The battery lamp had been turned on at some point. Its dim glow barely reached the far corners of the room, but it was enough for me to see Maribel leaning over me.

She looked terrified.

"Ryan?" She called again, one hand gripping my shoulder. "Ryan, are you okay?"

I tried to answer, but pain cut through my head before I could get the words out.

"Fuck..."

The dizziness was brutal.

It felt as if I had been dragged out of a deep sleep too fast, except it was worse than that. A sharp sting ran behind my eyes. My ears buzzed so loudly that I could barely hear Maribel’s voice, even though she was right in front of me.

I pressed my palms against the sides of my head.

Was this because of Runis?

The meetings with her had never affected me like this before. I usually woke up tired, maybe confused for a minute, but never with my head splitting open and my hearing drowned beneath this horrible ringing.

Maybe I was simply exhausted.

Or maybe this had something to do with the strange change Dullahan was going through inside me. The collar. The urges. The way my body had felt different ever since I removed it.

Whatever it was, I wanted to shut my eyes again.

I wanted to sleep until the buzzing stopped.

But why had Maribel woken me up?

It was still night. The curtain over the shop’s glass door blocked most of the view outside, leaving nothing but a dark shape where the street should have been.

I forced myself upright, keeping one hand pressed against my temple.

"R...Ryan?" Maribel asked.

Her voice sounded distant and distorted, as though she were speaking from the other end of a long hallway.

I looked at her properly.

She had pulled the sheet around herself in a hurry, holding it tightly against her chest while the other hand stayed on my shoulder. Her hair was messy, and her face had gone pale beneath the dim light. It did not look like she had woken me because of a nightmare.

She was listening for something.

Maribel kept turning toward the front of the shop, toward the glass door and the darkness beyond it. Her eyes moved between the curtain and me, her posture tense.

"What’s wrong?" I managed to ask.

She did not seem to hear me.

I slapped one hand against the side of my ear, trying to force the sound back into place. It did nothing. The buzzing continued, high and constant, making my skull feel like it was vibrating from the inside.

Maribel bit her lip. She glanced outside again.

"What’s wrong, Maribel?" I asked louder.

This time, she looked at me.

Instead of answering, she pointed at her ear.

Then she pointed toward the street.

I frowned.

"You hear something?"

She nodded quickly.

My stomach sank.

Someone had found us?

Had they knocked on the door while we were asleep? If someone from the Boardwalk saw Maribel here in the middle of the night, it would create enough trouble on its own. But the fear in her eyes told me this was not about gossip or embarrassment.

I pushed myself off the bed.

My legs nearly gave out beneath me.

I stumbled sideways and caught myself against the wall, my hand slamming onto the cracked surface hard enough to sting.

"Damn it..."

Maribel took a step toward me, but I raised a hand, telling her I was fine even though I clearly was not.

The buzzing in my ears grew worse.

I struck the side of my head again, harder this time.

Then, suddenly, the pressure broke.

Sound rushed back all at once.

The distant creak of the building.

The faint hum from the battery lamp.

Maribel’s uneven breathing.

And beneath all of it—

A noise.

My entire body froze.

"What..."

I pulled my hands away from my ears.

For one second, I hoped I had imagined it.

Then it came again.

A low mechanical buzz rolled through the night, growing louder and more distorted as it carried between the buildings. The sound was wrong. It did not belong to the Boardwalk. It did not sound like a generator, a vehicle, or anything people here could have made.

My skin prickled.

No.

Images crashed into my mind before I could stop them.

Jackson Township.

The panic in the streets. People running. Gunfire. The horrible noise that had torn through the air while everyone around me realized too late what it meant.

My mouth went dry.

"It can’t be..."

The buzz rose again.

Loud.

Sharp.

Terrifying.

I took a step toward the front of the shop, listening harder. The closer I moved to the curtain, the clearer it became.

The Screamer.

I stopped.

My feet would not move.

Goosebumps rose through my whole body.

"No," I whispered. "No..."

"Ryan?" Maribel asked behind me.

Her voice shook now. "What’s happening?"

I turned to look at her.

"I—It’s Starakian technology," I said.

Her eyes widened.

"Wh...What?"

"Maribel, how long has that sound been going on?" I asked, panic slipping into my voice. "How long?"

"I...I don’t know." She glanced toward the door. "I woke up feeling dizzy too, and it was already loud. I heard gunshots after that. Something’s happening outside."

Gunshots. ℯ

My thoughts raced.

If the Screamer was active, the whole Boardwalk could be in danger. That thing did not need to attack anybody by itself. Its sound was enough. It was meant to draw every Infected nearby toward the source, turning a secured street into a slaughterhouse before anyone understood what was coming.

"Get dressed," I told her.

Maribel nodded right away and reached for her red dress.

"Wait." I pointed toward the clothes beside the bed. "Not that. You can’t run around outside in a bright red party dress."

She stopped with the dress in her hands and looked down at it as if only now realizing what she had grabbed.

"R...Right."

"Take something from my bag."

She threw the dress aside and hurried toward my belongings. I pointed to the bag near the wall, then pulled out a shirt and a pair of pants for her. They would be too large, but they were darker, warmer, and far better for moving through the street without drawing attention.

"Use these," I said, holding out the shirt and pants. "They’ll be long on you, but they’re better than that dress."

"Okay," Maribel said as she took them. "But you know what it is, Ryan?"

She moved quickly, pulling on the oversized clothes while keeping her attention fixed on me. The shirt hung past her hips, and the pants had to be folded at the ankles, but she did not complain. She tied her hair into a ponytail with unsteady hands, trying to keep it out of her face.

"Yeah," I said.

I pulled on my own shirt, shoved my arms through the sleeves, and bent down to put on my shoes.

My hands were not steady.

I clenched my teeth, trying to keep my thoughts from spinning apart.

I could not believe this was happening.

It should have been over.

The Screamer was gone.

I had destroyed it. I had killed Jason. I had taken the Silver Stone from him chest and—

I stopped in the middle of tying my shoe.

The Silver Stone.

My breath caught.

The Screamer’s Silver Stone had been placed in the Three Stones Matrix by me.

Gaspar had stolen it when he took Mei.

The realization came together so quickly that it made me feel sick.

Zakthar had been building a weapon for Callighan.

A Starakian weapon.

The Screamer.

It had to be.

Are you kidding me.

"Ryan!"

Maribel grabbed my arm, pulling me out of my thoughts.

I looked at her.

The fear in her face made everything feel more real.

There was no time to stand around connecting pieces that should have been obvious earlier. The sound outside was growing louder. So were the gunshots.

I grabbed my hand axe from beside the bed and slipped the Beretta into my waistband. I checked the bullets, then handed the gun to Maribel in the end.

She stared down at it.

"You’ll need this," I said. "Just keep it close. Aim if you have to. Don’t waste bullets unless you’re sure."

Maribel swallowed and nodded.

"You ready?" I asked.

She looked at me like she wanted to ask a hundred more questions.

Instead, she nodded once.

I pushed open the glass door.

The sound hit us immediately.

The Screamer’s buzzing noise rolled through the Boardwalk so loudly that it made the glass tremble in its frame. It seemed to come from somewhere deeper inside the settlement, buried beneath the buildings and barricades.

But it was not alone.

Infected growls echoed through the street.

Gunshots cracked from farther ahead, followed by people shouting over each other. Someone screamed. Another voice yelled for them to get back, but the words were swallowed by the mechanical sound pouring through the night.

Maribel stepped outside behind me.

Her eyes moved across the street.

Infected were already there.

A pair of them staggered past a damaged storefront about twenty feet away, their heads twitching toward the sound. More shapes moved at the far end of the road, coming through the darkness in uneven, jerking motions.

"Damn it," I muttered.

"W...What’s happening?" Maribel asked. Her grip tightened around the Beretta. "How is this even possible?"

"It’s the noise."

"But even the noise—"

"It’s Starakian technology, Maribel," I cut in. "The sound draws them in, but it does more than that. It messes with their senses. Makes them react harder."

She stared at me.

"They become faster," I continued. "Stronger. More aggressive. Once they hear it, they stop moving like normal Infected. They act like animals being driven into a frenzy."

That was why Jackson Township had fallen so fast.

Barricades that should have held for days had been torn apart within minutes. The Screamer did not just call the Infected toward a location. It turned every one of them into something worse.

Maribel’s face went pale.

"H...How do you know that?"

My expression hardened.

"Jackson Township," I said. "We had to abandon it because the Infected swarmed the town."

"Y...Yeah, you did, but..."

She stopped.

The answer reached her before I said anything else.

Her eyes widened.

"You mean... it was the same thing?"

"Yeah."

I looked around the street.

The Infected had noticed us.

One of them turned sharply in our direction. Its clouded eyes fixed on us, and its mouth opened in a wet snarl. Two more behind it followed the movement, their bodies snapping toward the shop.

I shoved the hand axe through my belt, reached up, and tied my black hair back as quickly as I could.

"We have to move," I said.

Maribel nodded, though she still looked shaken.

I grabbed her arm.

"Now."