Prologue “Before the Undead Ones”
BAILEY MONTGOMERY
Morning always came too loud in the Montgomery house.
Not because it was noisy—because it wasn’t.
It was the kind of quiet that meant everyone was already awake, just moving differently through the same space.
Bailey stood in the kitchen with her hair still half-tangled, watching the coffee machine finish its slow drip like it was something important. The kind of normal thing people stopped noticing until it was gone.
Behind her, something hit the fridge door.
“Ben, don’t—” she started automatically.
A small laugh.
Not Ben.
Blair.
Bailey turned just in time to see her little sister trying to climb onto the counter again, barefoot, determined, and completely unbothered by gravity or consequences.
Blair made a sound—quick hands moving in sign.
I’m helping.
“No, you’re not,” Bailey signed back without thinking, already stepping over.
Blair grinned anyway, like disagreement was just another form of affection.
From the hallway:
Bianca’s voice, half-asleep and irritated. “If you two break something, I’m not fixing it.”
Bella followed more quietly, already dressed, already aware of the world in a way that felt older than her age.
Ben came last, rubbing his eyes, curls sticking up like he’d argued with his pillow and lost.
Bailey looked at them.
All of them.
And felt it again—that instinct that came too easily for someone her age.
Count them. Make sure they’re here.
She did.
Every morning.
Like the world depended on it.
ALICE MONTGOMERY
Down the hall, Alice Montgomery didn’t look like someone preparing for breakfast.
She looked like someone preparing for something she couldn’t explain.
Her hair was tied back too tightly. Papers were spread across the dining table in neat, controlled stacks. Her phone was face down beside them like she didn’t want it to interrupt her thoughts.
Bailey watched her mother for a moment before speaking.
“You didn’t sleep.”
Alice didn’t look up right away. “Neither did you.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is if you’re paying attention.”
That made Bailey pause.
Alice finally looked at her then. Green eyes like Bailey’s, but softer around the edges in a way that felt earned instead of inherited.
“Eat something,” Alice said gently.
“I’m fine.”
“You always say that.”
“And I always am.”
A beat.
Then Alice’s attention drifted past her—toward the hallway, toward the house itself, like she was listening for something inside the walls.
Bailey noticed.
But didn’t ask.
Not yet.
SHAWN OWENS
Shawn Owens stood outside a building that no longer felt like part of the world it used to belong to.
The military base was quieter than it should’ve been.
Not peaceful.
Just… waiting.
Nova sat beside him, alert but still. Black fur absorbing light, blue eyes scanning movement that wasn’t there yet.
Shawn adjusted the strap on his gear.
Routine mattered.
Routine meant control.
Control meant survival.
“Status update,” someone called from behind him.
He turned slightly. “Clear perimeter. No movement overnight.”
The man nodded, checking something off a clipboard like paper still mattered more than blood pressure and adrenaline.
Shawn didn’t correct him.
Correction wasted energy.
Energy was limited.
Everything was limited now.
Nova bumped her shoulder lightly against his leg.
He glanced down.
“Yeah,” he muttered quietly. “I know.”
She knew too.
Something was shifting.
Not here.
Everywhere.
BAILEY MONTGOMERY
The news was always on now.
Even when no one was really watching it.
The television in the living room flickered with breaking updates that had stopped sounding like updates weeks ago.
“…containment failure…”
“…restricted zones expanding…”
“…repeat advisories to avoid travel…”
Bianca scoffed from the couch. “They’ve been saying that for days.”
“Because it’s still happening,” Bella said quietly.
Ben looked at the screen too long.
Blair didn’t look at it at all.
Bailey stood near the edge of the room, arms crossed.
Adam wasn’t in the room.
That was normal too.
He had been less present lately—physically there, but always somewhere else in his mind. Like something was pulling him away in directions he didn’t explain.
Alice walked in behind Bailey.
She didn’t sit down.
That was new.
SHAWN OWENS
The first breach didn’t look like anything dramatic.
That was the problem.
No explosion.
No warning sirens that meant anything anymore.
Just a radio cutting out mid-sentence.
Then another.
Then silence where communication was supposed to be.
“Sir,” someone said sharply, voice tightening.
Shawn already knew before the words came.
He stepped outside.
The air felt wrong.
Nova growled low in her chest.
Far off—too far to be safe but too close to ignore—movement began where movement shouldn’t exist.
Not human movement.
Not anymore.
Shawn reached for his weapon without hesitation.
Not panic.
Procedure.
“Lock down perimeter,” he said.
His voice didn’t change.
But something behind his ribs did.
BAILEY MONTGOMERY
That night, the house didn’t feel like a house anymore.
It felt like a decision that hadn’t been made yet.
Adam finally came home late.
Not normal late.
Different late.
The kind where silence walked in before the person did.
Bailey noticed immediately.
So did Alice.
They didn’t speak for a moment.
The siblings were upstairs now—too young to understand what tension felt like when it had nowhere to go.
Adam looked at Alice.
Alice looked at Adam.
Bailey watched both of them.
Something passed between them without words.
Something heavy.
Something final.
“Pack essentials,” Adam said at last.
That was all he said.
No explanation.
No comfort.
No reassurance.
Bianca straightened instantly. “What does that mean?”
“It means we leave,” Adam replied.
Bailey felt her stomach tighten.
Not fear.
Understanding.
The worst kind.
Because it meant this wasn’t a suggestion.
It was already decided.
SHAWN OWENS
Nova didn’t sleep that night.
Neither did Shawn.
He sat near the edge of a temporary barricade, watching the darkness like it might start making decisions on its own.
Around him, the base had shifted into something else.
Not order.
Not chaos.
Something in between.
People moved faster now.
Talked less.
Listened more.
A soldier passed him and hesitated.
“You think it’s getting worse?”
Shawn didn’t look up immediately.
Then:
“Yeah,” he said. “It is.”
No comfort in it.
Just accuracy.
The soldier walked away like that answer didn’t help him at all.
Nova pressed closer.
Shawn rested a hand briefly on her head.
“Stay close,” he said quietly.
Not because she needed it.
Because he did.
BAILEY MONTGOMERY
By morning, the house was different.
Not destroyed.
Not yet.
Just… prepared to stop being what it was.
Suitcases.
Backpacks.
Locked drawers opened and emptied.
Bianca moved fast, angry energy turned into motion.
Bella packed carefully.
Ben watched everything like he was trying to memorize normal before it disappeared.
Blair clung to Bailey’s hand longer than usual.
Bailey didn’t let go.
Alice stood in the doorway of the kitchen for a long time before speaking.
“We stay together,” she said.
It wasn’t a promise.
It was instruction.
Bailey nodded.
Adam checked the windows again.
Twice.
Three times.
Like something outside might change if he stopped looking.
SHAWN OWENS
The first confirmed outbreak report came through broken transmission.
Fragments only.
Words without context.
But Shawn understood enough.
He always did.
Nova shifted beside him, ears angled toward distance.
He stood slowly.
No hesitation now.
Only direction.
“Fall back,” someone ordered.
But Shawn didn’t move immediately.
He looked out once more—at the world he had known becoming something else entirely.
Then he exhaled.
“Move,” he said to Nova.
And they did.
BAILEY MONTGOMERY
The car engine started later than it should have.
Everyone was already inside.
Too quiet.
Too aware.
Bailey sat in the back seat between Blair and Ben, hands resting lightly where she could feel both of them.
Alice drove.
Adam was in the passenger seat.
No one spoke for the first few minutes.
Then Bianca said, “Where are we going?”
No answer came immediately.
Adam looked out the window.
Alice’s grip tightened on the wheel.
And Bailey, watching both of them again, realized something she couldn’t quite name yet.
Not fear.
Not confusion.
Something worse.
The feeling that the world outside wasn’t the only thing changing.
SHAWN OWENS
The road was no longer safe.
That was the only certainty.
Shawn moved with Nova through a collapsing network of movement and noise—people, vehicles, panic spreading faster than understanding.
He didn’t stop for them.
Not because he didn’t care.
Because stopping didn’t change outcomes anymore.
Nova stayed tight at his side.
Always.
At one intersection, he paused just long enough to see it:
the world splitting into before and after.
He didn’t know what came next.
Only that it had already begun.
