Elena, Cindy, and Christopher stood together in the flickering, smoke-stained darkness of the ruined house, each of them battered and coated in a layer of soot and panic. The Enhanced Infected—its body grotesquely charred and still partially burning, a monstrous silhouette framed by scattered embers—loomed at the far end of the shattered hallway. Even grievously wounded, it was formidable; bits of muscle and melting flesh sloughed away with every movement, but its blank, lidless gaze remained locked on its prey. Pain was nothing to this creature—its injuries only made it more unpredictable, each tendon snapping taut as it prepared to strike.
A singed curtain swayed in a resurgence of heat from the burning room behind them as Elena wiped a line of sweat from her brow. She fixed her grip around the duct-taped handle of her lightning-charged crowbar. "Its strength is barely even human," she hissed, eyes narrowed. "If we don't disable it—cripple or decapitate—we're dead."
